CS301 - Chapter 1
Chapter 1:
● 1940s: First electronic computer built - ENIAC
● 1956: First hard-drive disk, weighing a ton, stored five megabytes
● 1991: Space shuttle had a one-megahertz computer;
● New Millenium, some cars had 100-mhz computers;
● Speeds of a few gigahertz now common
● Cyberspace is built on computers (e.g., Web servers), communication devices (wired and wireless), and storage media, but its real meaning is the vast web of communications and information that includes the Internet and more
● web of items embedded with software and connected through the Internet is called the Internet of Things, or IoT (mobile phones, televisions, digital TV recorders, webcams, medical devices, cars, refrigerators)
● Self-driving cars: decr. # accidents, change design of roads, software bugs
● Cellphones: location tracking, censorship?, social networking, email origin, online sales, free stuff
● AI pattern recognition
○ Philosopher John Searle argues that computers are not and cannot be intelligent. They do not think; they instead manipulate symbols and do so at very high speed. They can store (or access) and manipulate a huge quantity of data, but they are not conscious
● Tools for disabled people: deaf and blind assistance, prosthetics
● Gift of Fire Themes:
○ Old problems in a new context
■ New suit for the same debates
○ Adapting to new technology
■ require adaptive changes in laws and regulations, social institutions, business policies, and personal skills, attitudes, and behavior
○ Resistance from established interests
■ businesses, organizations, unions, and government agencies that stand to lose income or power attempt to block the new methods
○ Varied Sources of solutions to problems
■ Solutions for problems that result from new technology come from more or improved technology, the market, management policies, education and public awareness, volunteer efforts, and law
○ The global reach of the net
■ Criminals can steal services from outside the victim’s country. Laws in one country prohibiting content restrict those in other countries
○ Trade-offs and controversies
■ Increasing privacy and security often means reducing convenience. Protecting privacy makes law enforcement more difficult. Unpleasant, offensive, or inaccurate information accompanies our access to the Web’s vast amounts of useful information.
○ Perfection is a direction, not an option (impossible, but helps seek solutions)
○ Differences between personal choices, business policies, and laws
● Ethical theory assumes that people are rational and make free choices. Neither of these conditions is always and absolutely true. People act emotionally, and they make mistakes.
● Ethical rules are rules to follow in our interactions with other people and in our actions that affect other people
● Baase’s Assumptions:
○ Free and rational choices
○ Personal responsibility
○ Goals: enhance human dignity, peace, happiness, and well-being
○ Same rules for all
● Immanuel Kant (Deontology) - essentialist approach:
○ Based on essence and mutual connection to a Supreme Being
○ Some actions are inherently right and some are inherently wrong
■ We have a duty to perform the right ones
■ emphasize duty and absolute rules, to be followed whether they lead to good or ill consequences in particular cases
■ Do not lie
○ Three Principles:
■ Universality - we should follow rules that we can apply to everyone
■ Logic/Rationality - is the standard for what is good (actions are intrinsically good because they follow from logic)
■ People - we must never treat people as merely means to ends, but rather as ends in themselves
○ Was an absolutist → if lying is wrong, it is always wrong to lie, regardless of consequences
● Utilitarianism - a consequentialist approach:
○ John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham
○ Main Principle:
■ To increase happiness or “utility”
● Decisions are made by weighing the benefits and damages to affected people (considers aggregate utility)
○ Act Utilitarianism:
■ We consider the utility of actions by their net impacts
○ Rule utilitarianism:
■ Applies the lens of utilitarianism to general ethical rules, not actions
○ Problems:
■ It may be impossible to determine every consequence of an action
■ Whose utility should we value most?
■ Utilitarianism does not recognize individual rights
● Rule utilitarianism far less from these problems than act utilitarianism
● Natural (negative) rights vs positive rights
○ Natural rights: let people make their own decisions without interference
■ Rights come from nature
■ John Locke: we have exclusive right to ourselves, our labor, what we produce with our labor
● Protection of private property as moral rule → increases utility/wealth
■ Freedom of speech
○ Negative rights/liberties: rights to act without interference
■ Right to life; right to be free from assault; right to use your property; right to use your labor, skills, and mind to create goods and services and trade
■ life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - declaration of independence
○ Positive rights/claim rights: obligation on some people to provide certain things for others
■ Job: someone must hire you; government set up job programs
■ Positive right to life: obligated to pay for food/care for those who can’t
● Golden rules: (Bible/Confucius) treat others the way you want to be treated.
● Aristotle: live a virtuous life by doing virtuous acts (be a good person)
● Social contracts and a theory of political justice
○ Idea that people willingly submit to basic set of laws
○ Thomas Hobbes:
■ Described a starting point called the State of Nature, a dismal place where each man acts according to his own interests
■ Believed that man is rational and will seek a better situation, even at the cost of giving up some independence
○ John Rawls
■ Reasonable people, recognizing that a legal (or political) structure is necessary for social order, will want to cooperate on terms that all accept, and they will abide by the rules of society, even those they do not like.
■ Distinguishable by his strong requirement for claim rights (positive rights): a just and fair political system will ensure that all citizens have sufficient means to make effective use of their freedoms.
■ Consider unethical if action or structure leaves least-advantaged people worse than they were before - more weight to utility of least-advantaged
■ Behind the veil of ignorance, we choose policies that would be fair for all, protecting the most vulnerable and least-advantaged members of society
● Commercial law, such as the Uniform Commercial Code, defines rules for economic transactions and contracts. Such rules provide a framework in which we can interact smoothly and confidently
● A good law will set minimal standards that can apply to all situations, leaving a large range of voluntary choices. Ethics fills the gap between the time when technology creates new problems and the time when legislatures pass reasonable laws. Ethics fills the gap between general legal standards that apply to all cases and the particular choices made in a specific case
● Other Ethical Views:
○ Ethical Egoism (Objectivism):
■ Individuals should act in their own self-interest, even to the detriment of others
○ Subjective Relativism:
■ There are no objective moral truths that apply to everyone
● Right and wrong is dependent on an individual’s perspective
○ Cultural Relativism:
■ Basically same as above
○ Virtue Ethics:
■ The key to ethical behavior is developing good habits and character traits
○ Just Consequentialism:
■ Emphasizes the importance of the consequences of policies within the constraints of justice
● Greatest good for the greatest number, without violating the rights of individuals or groups
Chapter 2.1: Privacy Risks and Principles
● 3 Aspects of Privacy:
○ Freedom from Surveillance (followed, tracked, watched, eavesdropped)
○ Freedom from intrusion-beign left alone
○ Control of Information
■ Knowing of information collection
■ Able to control its dissemination
● Privacy Threats:
○ External:
■ Leaks
■ Theft
■ Institutions Loss (IRS or Law Enforcement)
○ Personal:
■ Negligence
■ Tradeoffs for Convenience
○ Intentional, institutional uses of personal information for law enforcement and tax collection; unauthorized use or release by “insiders”; theft; leak; our own actions
● Search query data
○ Search engines collect and store terabytes of data daily. A terabyte is a trillion bytes.
○ companies analyze the data to improve search services, to target advertising better, and to develop new services; learn about what products people want
○ subpoena is a court order for someone to give testimony or provide documents or other information for an investigation or a trial
● Phone apps - send location data, included phone ID, age + gender to advertising companies, copied user’s contact list to remote servers, copy photos
● Definitions:
○ Re-Identification - increasingly large databases allows the identification of individual from anonymized data
■ AOL employee, against company policy, released data that included more than 20 million search queries by more than 650,000 people from a three-month period.
○ Invisible information gathering - describes the collection of personal information without the person’s knowledge
○ Spyware - software collects information about a person’s activity and data on his or her device and then sends the information over the Internet to the person or company that planted the spyware
○ Cookies - small files maintained by the Web browser on our computer and accessed by the entity that put them there or by others to store information about configuration, activity
○ Secondary use - use of personal information for a purpose other than the one for which the person supplied it
■ Give people control over secondary uses: Opt out, Opt in
○ Data-mining - the search and analysis of data to deduce new information
○ Profiling - analyzing data to determine characteristics of people most likely to engage in certain behavior
○ Matching - combining/comparing information from different sources
○ Digital Fingerprint - unique identifier derived from digital behavior
○ Invisible Information Gathering, Secondary Use, Opt-in vs Opt-out, Personal Information, Digital Fingerprint
● Fair Information Principles:
○ All data gathering must be done with Informed Consent
○ Offer an opt-in or opt-out framework
○ Collect and maintain only needed and accurate information
○ Provide complete data collection overview
○ Ensure data security
○ Possess appropriate policies for government requests
● Miscellaneous:
○ Philosophy
■ Looking-glass self — individuality arises from privacy
○ Politics
■ Privacy → freedom of association → existence of dissenting groups
Chapter 2.2: Privacy in Business and Social Sectors
● Marketing:
○ Increase in information collection → targeted ads
○ Targeted ads → much more effective
■ May be used to manipulate people
○ Less obvious personalization: discounts to first-time visitors, guessing gender based on clicking behavior, offering free shipping when person hesitates to buy, higher priced hotel rooms to those who use Macs, face recognition in games
● Ethics:
○ Targeted ads not inherently unethical
○ Problem is when information that is collected without informed consent is used to target those ads
○ Informed Consent:
■ People often don’t know the extent of data collection
● Data Collection:
○ Often P.I. is collected unknowingly or from people who have no other choice if they want to use a service
■ Ex: Discounts and Prizes
● Shoppers club cards
■ Ex: Free Services
● Gmail, Youtube
○ Lauren Weinstein, founder of Privacy Forum, argues that among less affluent people the attraction of free services may be especially strong, and it “coerces” them into giving up their privacy
● Social Media:
○ People are generally irresponsible with their data on social media platforms
○ Social media platforms implement practices that share user data with notice
■ Making it easy to accidentally overshare
○ Should a new feature be automatically on or off
● Cloud Storage:
○ Syncing data from multiple devices
○ our data are stored on computers that do not belong to us, that we do not control. All our data are vulnerable at the level of the weakest security of our devices and the cloud services that host the data
○ Benefits: manage data and backups, accessed anywhere, easily share files and collaborate
○ Ddisadvantages: increased risk to privacy and security
○ Trades security for convenience
■ More points of failure vs easier access to data
● Tracking:
○ Global positioning systems (GPS), mobile phones, radio frequency identification (RFID) tags – There’s an increase in location tracking
○ Can find out who we spend time with, what we are doing; supermarkets can analyse customer traffic patterns for better layout; amusement parks tracks movements using wristband
■ It’s has its benefits but there are also security and privacy concerns
● Tracking children increase safety, but might also decrease safety if monitory system that sends signals is intercepted
● Right to be Forgotten - right to have material removed:
○ A question of how much control people should have over the data that sites collect and maintain
■ Outdated information can cause problems
■ May be more expensive for smaller businesses
○ company’s use of the data is, in part, our payment for the free service it provides
○ Positive Right (claim right):
■ people can force others to remove information about them, potentially infringing freedom of speech
○ Negative Right (liberty):
■ people can refuse to allow any data collection in the first place, potentially requiring them to stay off the internet altogether
Chapter 2.3: The Fourth Amendment and Changing Technology
● Fourth Amendment:
○ People have the right to be secure from unreasonable searches and seizures
■ Unless there is a warrant issued OR there is a seemingly imminent danger
○ New technology induces new debates on the method that law enforcement are allowed to use to look for evidence of crimes
● Case: Olmstead v. United States (1928):
○ Problem:
■ Government used wiretaps without court orders
○ Decision:
■ Wiretapping is not unconstitutional
● But congress can still ban it
■ 4th Amendment only applies to physical intrusion and to the search/seizure of material things, not conversations
○ Dissent (Justice Louis Brandeis):
■ Argued that the 4th amendment was meant to stop all unwarranted intrusions
● Law: Communications Act of 1934:
○ Unless authorized by sender, no one could intercept and share a message
■ Law enforcement continued violating this law with no consequences
● Sometimes in order to target minority/dissenting groups
○ Gave FCC broad regulatory authority over pre-internet telecom companies
■ Used as justification for net neutrality
● Case: Katz v. United States (1967):
○ Problem:
■ Law enforcement monitored a conversation in a phone booth without permission from sender
○ Decision:
■ Ruled that 4th Amendment applied to conversations and some public spaces
● Reversed Olmstead v. US: fourth amendment applied to convos
● Intruding in public spaces where a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy requires a court order
○ Expectation of Privacy:
■ Expectation of privacy has declined as education about data collection policies become more widespread
● Case: Smith v. Maryland (1979): Supreme Court argued that this should not weaken the 4th Amendment
■ Case: US v. Miller (1976): No expectation of privacy for information that is shared with third parties
● Like financial information shared with a bank
■ USA PATRIOT Act (2001) - eased government access to many kinds of personal information without a court order.
● Law: Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA):
○ Extended the Katz v. US wiretapping restrictions to electronic communications (electronic mail and cordless and cellular telephones)
○ Prohibits interception of electronic communications/data in transmission
○ Set weaker standards to obtain email - gov argued that allowing ISPs to store their email = giving up expectation of privacy -> two decades later appealed they do have privacy
● Case: Kyllo v. US (2001):
○ Decision:
■ Law enforcement cannot use thermal-imaging devices to search a home
● Specifically, devices that are not in general public use cannot be used
● Case: Jones v. US (2012):
○ Problem:
■ Police attached a GPS to the suspect’s wife’s car without a warrant
○ Decision:
■ Vehicles are protected under the 4th Amendment
■ 24/7 tracking violates the expectation of privacy
● Case: Riley v. California (2014):
○ Decision:
■ Law enforcement cannot search the contents of a phone without a warrant
● Stingrays:
○ Were not involved in any court cases
○ Are devices capable of triangulating phone locations
○ US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that warrants would have to be granted before they can be used
○ Police still capable acquiring cell data through third parties (like telecom companies)
● Noninvasive but deepy revealing searches – do not need to physically enter or open: particle sniffers to detect drugs and explosives, thermal-imaging devices, drones
Chapter 2.4: Government Systems
● Video Surveillance and Facial Recognition:
○ Upside: Has the potential to help identify criminals and terrorists
○ Downside:
■ Little evidence to suggest that it reduces crime + tooo $$ to monitor
■ Large-scale public applications:
● Found no criminals or terrorists
● Generated false positives
■ Can be abused by operators; footage can be mishandled
■ Increased surveillance → increased control over populations
○ Snooper Bowl - 2001 Super Bowl where the faces of all the fans were scanned without knowledge to search for criminals
■ American Civil Liberties Union compared this to computerized police lineup to which innocent people were subject without their knowledge or consent
● Privacy Commissioner of Canada argued that the country’s Privacy Act required a “demonstrable need for each piece of personal information collected” to carry out government programs and therefore recording activities of large numbers of the general public was not a permissible means of crime prevention
● Law: Privacy Act of 1974:
○ Establishes a Code of Fair Information Practice that governs the collection, maintenance, use, and dissemination of personally identifiable information about individuals that is maintained in systems of records by federal agencies
■ Federal government can only record what’s necessary
■ The public must be notified of the type information being collected in the Federal Register so they can learn about what databases exist
■ People can access records and correct inaccurate information
■ Requires security measures for databases
■ Information can only be disclosed with a person’s consent
○ Loopholes:
■ Only restricts the collection of information
● Agencies can pay to use private, commercial databases
○ Ex: NYPD (license plates), DOE (student info)
● Law: E-Government Act of 2002:
○ Added privacy regulations for electronic data/services
○ Required government agencies to:
■ Consider privacy impact
■ Post privacy policies - not very effective (people don’t read them)
● Government Accountability Office (GAO):
○ Responsible for overseeing agencies
○ Found that 97% of agency websites failed to comply with the fair information standards established by the Federal Trade Commision (FTC)
■ Including the White House, FTC, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), FBI, the State Department
● IRS - really bad, allowed employees to read and modify taxpayer information & had massive security vulnerabilities
● Public Records:
○ Lots of information (marriage records, arrests, etc.) has been made public through online databases
■ States/agencies must decide what information should be publicly accessible
● Some information may create safety risks, opportunities for identity theft
● National ID Systems:
○ Social Security Numbers:
■ Were only intended to be used for Social Security program
● Has been used for purposes and in contexts beyond that
○ 1961 IRS began using it as taxpayer identification #
○ 1976 state and local tax, welfare, motor vehicle departments
○ 1988 parents provide their SSN for child’s birth certificate
○ Credit bureaus, occupational licences, marriage licences..
○ Ex: university IDs
■ Can be found in government and commercial documents
● Often stored insecurely
○ US national ID System
■ Would utilize a lot of P.I. to create a card that can be used for any ID purpose
● Pros:
○ Potential to increase convenience, reduce fraud, etc.
● Cons:
○ One point of failure, very damaging if lost
○ Potential security and privacy issues
■ Fear of “papers please” → Holocaust & Japanese Internment
● Law: Real ID Act (passed 2005, effect in 2008)
○ An attempt to set federal standards for driver’s licenses and state ID cards
○ to get a federally approved driver’s license or ID card, each person must provide documentation of address, D.O.B., SSN, and legal status to obtain a federally approved card
■ Places a major burden on the state DMV’s
● Making them responsible for verifying identity
○ A variety of benefits may eventually be attached to these ID’s
■ Making things inconvenient for those without
● Japan national computerized registry system (2002) assigned an ID number to everyone -> complained insufficient privacy protection -> new system My Number (2015/6) -> number and associated ID card are intended to link tax, pension, medical, employment, and marital status records
● Indian government national ID database w/ photo, fingerprints, biometric data, D.O.B
● Estonia: ID smart cards include cryptographic keys
● National Security Agency (NSA) and Clandestine Intelligence Gathering 1952:
○ NSA supercomputers → NSA violates the 4th Amendment → illegally collecting telegrams
■ It is legally restricted to intercepting foreign communications
● Historically monitored communications between American citizens, usually dissidents
○ Law: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)(1978):
■ Prohibited NSA from unwarranted collection of telegrams and the compilation of US citizen watch lists
● The intertwining nature of digital communications channels enables NSA to analyze a wide range of information without FISA court orders
○ Law: FISA Amendment Act (2008):
■ Retroactively protects AT&T and other entities from lawsuits related their assistance of the NSA
● Passed after it was revealed NSA spied on AT&T users from a secret room in an AT&T facility
■ Reduced previous protections against domestic spying
○ Edward Snowden (2013):
■ Publicly released documents about NSA activity
■ Revealed:
● That NSA can search through most activities that a person can do online
● NSA collects data directly from tech and telecom companies
● NSA spied on millions of innocent people, domestic and international
● NSA stores billions of GB of encrypted data, much of it to be decrypted later when better tech is available
Chapter 2.5: Protecting Privacy: Technology and Markets
● Privacy Interest Groups:
○ Independent Programmers
○ Entrepreneurs
○ Large Businesses
○ (Activist) Organizations
● Privacy tools and services: cookie disablers, ad-blockers, data encryption
● Do Not Track:
○ Signal is sent to websites → may or may not be respected by advertisers
● Encryption:
○ Pros:
■ Can protect the privacy of individuals without their involvement
● Allows for more convenience
○ Transactions can be made with less fear of interception
○ Cons:
■ Encryption-based transactions methods make it harder to track individuals involved foul play
● Ad-Blocking:
○ Ads:
■ Can be intrusive, battery-draining, misleading, or actual viruses
■ May be necessary to pay for site hosting in lieu of direct payments from users
○ Ethics of Ad-blocking:
■ Deontology on Adblock:
● The reliance of websites on ads does not justify a blanket ban on ad-blockers
○ Sites depend on users clicking through to buy the products advertised instead of the ads themselves
■ Utilitarianism on Adblock:
● Evaluate the positive and negative consequences of Adblock
● Pros:
○ Increased privacy and site performance
○ Reduced intrusion
○ Potentially better, less egregious ads
● Cons:
○ Small sites depend on ad revenue
■ Content may be placed behind a paywall to compensate → reducing access to those who can’t pay
■ Jobs may be lost
○ Some people may want to see specific ads
● Difficult to quantify and evaluate the positives and negatives
■ John Rawls (Veil of Ignorance):
● An action is unethical if it leaves the least-advantaged group worse off
○ Adblock is unethical because low-income people might be paywalled from online content
● Protecting Personal Data:
○ Organizations that collect personal data are responsible for protecting it
■ They may also have financial reasons for doing so
■ Companies can self regular → to some degree
● They can choose to stop business with sites that have unclear privacy policies
○ Audit Trails - track data accesses and modification in databases, as well as who made them
○ Privacy Audits - check for leaks, review company privacy policies, and analyze policy compliance
○ Chief Privacy Officers (compliance officer) - oversee company privacy policies
● The Right to Privacy:
○ Samuel Warren & Louis Brandeis:
■ Asserts privacy is distinct from other rights, requiring greater protection
● People should be able to restrict the publication of information about them
○ Originated from a privacy blindspot in newspapers (gossip columns)
■ The only exception in their perspective is if information is of the public interest
■ Criticism:
● Very broad definition of privacy — when is it actually violated?
● Potentially conflicts with freedom of speech and freedom of press
○ Judith Jarvis Thomson:
■ Asserts that there are no rights to privacy independent of other rights
● The illegal collection of a data is not a violation of privacy rights, it is a violation of property rights
○ Privacy is treated as a commodity, something that can be owned and transferred (waived)
○ The collection of data is valid if it occurred as a result of a subject’s negligence
○ Information gained legitimately can be shared
■ Criticism:
● There are edge cases where a violation cannot be tied to a right other than privacy
● Ownership of Personal Data:
○ Judge Richard Posner:
■ Asserts that information that is 1) valuable to society and expensive to produce should be protected as property, 2) immensely valuable to an individual and is not costly to hide from society
● Is concerned about a reduction in innovation without this protection/incentive → similar to copyright
■ Asserts that a person does NOT have a right to deny access to negative personal information if it was obtained legitimately
■ Criticism:
● Critics believe that moral theory, not economics, should be the source of property rights
● Law: COPPA — Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act:
○ Sites must receive parental approval before they are allowed to collect P.I. on kids (-12 y. o.)
■ Sites responded by banning underaged accounts and/or barring access to their sites
● Children responded by lying about their age
● Laws and Regulation:
○ Consumer Protection:
■ Mary Gardiner Jones: Privacy Absolutist
● Consumers cannot consent to the dissemination of their personal data.
○ They do NOT understand what data is being collected and how it can be used
○ Informed consent is not sufficient protection
■ Data should not be collected
● The drawbacks are too great
● There is a power imbalance between consumers and corporations
○ Free Market:
■ Consumers should have the right to make their own agreements and must take the responsibilities that come with freedom
■ Poorly designed laws limit innovation
■ Prioritize informed consent and pressure businesses to self-regulate
● EU Regulations:
○ Law: Data Protection Directive (1995):
■ Requires member nations implement fair information principles
■ Set more stringent requirements for consent (related to information collection)
■ Restricts data transfer to nations without adequate privacy protections
● Safe Harbor - Companies with decent privacy protections were able to EU data
○ Replaced with Privacy Shield after NSA snooping was revealed
○ Law: Right to be Forgotten (2014):
■ Except when the information is of public interest, individuals can stop search engines from indexing links to sites containing personal information
■ Google block links only in the EU, not worldwide
Chapter 3.1-3.2: Freedom of Speech
● The First Amendment:
○ Protects all forms of expression
■ In order of protection:
● Print Media
● Broadcast (TV & Radio)
○ Require licenses that meet government standards of merit
● Common Carriers (phone, post)
○ Chilling effect (unconstitutional): action/law that causes people to avoid legal speech/publication out of fear
○ Applies only to the government
○ Restrictions on noise must be content neutral
○ Exceptions:
■ Libel and specific threats
■ Inciting violence (direct)
● Law: Telecommunications Act of 1996:
○ Revised the Communications Act of 1934
○ Websites and ISPs are not publishers → they cannot be prosecuted for the conduct of their users
○ States that the internet should be free from government interference
● Case: Butler v. Michigan (1957):
○ Problem:
■ A Michigan law banned the sale of potentially harmful material to children
○ Decision:
■ The law was struck down
■ Judge Frankfurter ruled that the state must not “reduce the adult population of Michigan to reading only what is fit for children.”
● Case: Miller v. California (1973):
○ Problem: Couple living in California selling sexually explicit material were prosecuted in Tennessee and found guilty of distributing obscenity under the local community standards (would not have been found guilty in California).
○ Decision:
■ Establishes guidelines for the determination of obscene material:\
● The depiction of sexual acts prohibited by state law
● The depiction of these acts in a clearly offensive manner
● If the works has no serious value
■ Left room for much subjectivity
■ The growth of the internet led to the recognition that “community standards” was no longer an appropriate tool for determining acceptable material
● Law: CDA — Communications Decency Act (1996):
○ An attempt by Congress to pass an internet censorship law, skirting the 1st Amendment by focusing on children
■ Made it illegal for anyone under 18 to view anything considered obscene
○ Case: ACLU et al. v. Janet Reno:
■ Decision:
● Ruled that the censorship provisions of the CDA were unconstitutional
○ Too broad/vague
○ See Butler v. Michigan
● Established that “the Internet deserves the highest protection from government intrusion.”
● Law: COPA — Child Online Protection Act (1998)
○ Made it a federal crime for commercial websites to provide minors with content that their community judged to be harmful
■ Required that adults provide ID to gain access to such content (unconstitutional)
○ Struck down in 2009:
■ Too broad
■ Lack of universal standard for decency
■ ID requirements for access were unconstitutional
● Law: CIPA - Children’s Internet Protection Act (2000):
○ Set new requirements that libraries must meet to receive federal funding
■ These requirements generally reduced access to obscene materials for children
○ NOT struck down
■ Technically, it does not require libraries to do anything
● Other:
○ Law: CPPA - The Child Pornography Prevention Act (1996):
■ Congress extended laws against child pornography to include “virtual” children as well as adults acting as minors
■ Case: Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (2002):
● Struck down CPPA → ruled that it violated the 1st Amendment
○ Law: PROTECT (2003):
■ Classified any “computer-generated image that is, or is indistinguishable from, that of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct” as constitutional
○ Law: CAN-SPAM Act (2003):
■ Commercial messages must include:
● Valid mail headers → no hiding identities
● Valid return address or phone number
● A method of opting out of future communications
■ Covers:
● Text
■ Prohibited autodialers without the consent of the receiver
● Zombies - spammers hijack large numbers of computers by spreading viruses that allow the spammer to send huge amounts of spam from the infected machines
Chapter 3.4 - Leaking Sensitive Material
● Freedom of speech and press do not excuse negligent information sharing
● Ethics of leaking analysis:
○ Type of material released
○ Value to society
○ Risks to society and innocent individuals
● Examples:
○ Climate Research Unit - prohibited climate change deniers from accessing data
■ Efforts of stopping the publication of papers by those scientists that questioned climate change and attempted to attack their reputations
○ Chelsea Manning - leaked military footage of Iraq and Afghanistan wars
○ Edward Snowden - leaked records of NSA spying
○ Panama Papers - leaked documents from Mossack Fonseca about heads-of-states, politicians, and others storing investments in off-shore companies
○ WikiLeaks - leaked the Democratic National Committee’s emails about undermining Bernie Sanders’ campaign, as well as personal conversation between DNC members (influence the presidential election)
● Leaks should contain no more than what is necessary
○ Innocent people may be endangered
● Leakers should consider will the harm caused by the leak be justified
Chapter 3.7: Net Neutrality
● Issues:
1. Whether the companies that provide the communications networks should be permitted to exclude or give different treatment to content based on the content itself, on the category of content, or on the company or organizations that provide it
2. Tiered service - should these companies be permitted to offer content providers and individual subscribers different levels of speed and priority at different price levels
● Definitions:
○ Net Neutrality Principle:
■ All internet traffic should be treated the same
■ Telecom companies should not:
● Be permitted to exclude or give different treatment to content
● Be able to offer tiered plans with different levels of speed and priority
○ Zero-rating:
■ The practice of exempting certain services and applications from mobile data charges and limits
● Ex: T-Mobile Binge On and Facebook’s Free Basics → gives advantage to companies and services it includes
● Arguments For:
○ Ending net neutrality might be the end of internet diversity
○ Gives ISPs too much power
● Arguments Against:
○ Conflicts with the Telecommunications Act of 1996
○ Free Market?
○ Ending net neutrality would “help the economy”
