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Abstract/Syllabus:
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Weitzner, Daniel, Harold Abelson, and Michael M. Fischer, 6.805 Ethics and the Law on the Electronic Frontier, Fall 2005. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare), http://ocw.mit.edu (Accessed 09 Jul, 2010). License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
Ethics and the Law on the Electronic Frontier
Fall 2005
The regulation of the Internet has its origin in the U.S. Constitution. Technology continues to shape policies governing the use of the electronic frontier. (Image by MIT OCW.)
Course Highlights
This course features weekly lecture notes and assignments. In addition, an extensive list of readings and resources devoted to the issues discussed in this course are available in the readings section.
Course Description
This course considers the interaction between law, policy, and technology as they relate to the evolving controversies over control of the Internet. In addition, there will be an in-depth treatment of privacy and the notion of "transparency" -- regulations and technologies that govern the use of information, as well as access to information. Topics explored will include:
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Legal Background for Regulation of the Internet
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Fourth Amendment Law and Electronic Surveillance
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Profiling, Data Mining, and the U.S. PATRIOT Act
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Technologies for Anonymity and Transparency
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The Policy-Aware Web
*Some translations represent previous versions of courses.
Syllabus
Instructors
Hal Abelson
Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, MIT
Danny Weitzner
Director for Technology and Society, World Wide Web Consortium
Mike Fischer
Professor of Anthropology and Sci. Tech. Studies, MIT
Prerequisites and Enrolling
MIT course 6 students may count this subject as one of the general engineering concentration subjects required for the S.B. or M.Eng. programs, or use this subject for HASS elective credit (but not both). Students wishing engineering concentration credit should enroll under the subject number 6.805, and students wishing HASS credit should enroll under the number STS.085. Graduate credit can be granted through STS (not Course 6), although this will require making special arrangements with Mike Fischer for extra work.
There are no formal prerequisites for this subject, but students should be prepared to do extensive independent research, involving both technology and policy analysis. In selecting participants for the class, we will be looking for people with appropriate backgrounds, such as knowledge of 6.033. Also, due to the importance of class participation, class attendance is mandatory.
Important: There are class readings, and also a writing assignment due before the first class. These must be completed and the writing assignment turned in by email before 5PM on the day before the first lecture. No one will be admitted to the first class without having completed this assignment. See the description of the pre-semester assignment in the assignments section.
Readings
The class will have many readings, mostly short. Most of these can be found in the readings section. There are also two books that you'll be reading as the semester progresses:
Brin, David. The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom? New York, NY: Perseus Books, 1999. ISBN: 0738201448.
O'Harrow, Robert. No Place to Hide: Behind the Scenes of Our Emerging Surveillance Society. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 2005. ISBN: 0743254805.
You should get copies of both of these (or borrow copies, or whatever).
Grading and Required Work
Grades will be based on
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Class Participation: We expect you to participate actively in class discussions, contributing your own ideas and commenting on the ideas of others. The readings assigned each week should be done before class. In class, we will call on you and ask you to answer questions about the readings and to contribute to the discussion. The quality of class participation will be a factor in grades. If you are the type who "does not like to talk in class," you should consider whether you really want to take this class. Class attendance is mandatory.
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Short Writing Assignments: There will be weekly short writing assignments, that use a system called the writing rotisserie. Most weeks' assignments will have two parts: (1) writing your own paper (due Sunday evening); and (2) commenting on other students' paper (due Wednesday). All assignments will be provided on the course server for everyone in the class to read. See the description of the writing rotisserie in the assignments section for details.
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Term Project: You will be required to do a term project, leading to a final paper. You can make this an individual project, or work with a partner. This will be a major project, and you should expect to devote a lot of time to it throughout the semester. The project can be purely a research paper, or it can involve design and implementation (but this still requires a paper). Papers may be selected for inclusion in the class archive of student papers on the Web. You should browse through the paper selections to get an idea of the scale of work expected.
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Oral Presentation: At least once during the semester, you will be required to make an oral presentation on your project, either a final report or a progress report.
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Midterm Exam: There will be an in-class midterm exam.
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Final Exam (not): There is no final exam.
Calendar
Course calendar.
LEC # |
TOPICS |
KEY DATES |
1 |
Course Overview and Introduction
Policy Making and the Structure of Law |
Pre-writing assignment due 1 day before Lec #1 |
Unit A: Regulating the Decentralized Internet |
2 |
The Internet meets the U.S. Constitution |
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3 |
The Legacy of Reno: The Strengths and Limits of Filtering and User Control |
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Unit B: Regulating Government Use of Surveillance Technology |
4 |
Fourth Amendment Foundations and the First Century of Electronic Surveillance |
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5 |
International Issues |
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6 |
Technology-driven Public-private Boundary Shifts
The Crypto Wars |
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7 |
Profiling and Datamining Post-9/11 |
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Midterm Exam |
Project proposal due |
Unit C: The Transparency Challenge |
8 |
Anonymity vs. Transparency |
1-page topic description and procedure due |
9 |
Personal Information on the Web |
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10 |
Transparency in Consumer Protection and Commercial Regulation |
Thesis and arguments for papers due |
11 |
Origins of Broadcast Regulation |
Complete paper drafts due 4 days later |
12 |
Semantic Web Public Policy Challenges |
Final paper due 6 days later |
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Further Reading:
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Readings
This section provides several of the background reading materials and resources for the course assignments.
Recommended Books
The following two books will be read during the semester:
Brin, David. The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom? New York, NY: Perseus Books, 1999. ISBN: 0738201448.
O'Harrow, Robert. No Place to Hide: Behind the Scenes of Our Emerging Surveillance Society. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 2005. ISBN: 0743254805.
Readings for Individual Topics
Here is background for some of the individual course topics. Specific items will be indicated in the weekly assignments.
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Computer Crime
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Computer Communications and Freedom of Expression
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Information and Intellectual Property
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Encryption and National Security
Other Sources of General Course Material
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Wired Magazine displays the Gucci look for cyberspace (and Hal wrote this before they were purchased by Condé-Nast), with almost as many fonts per issue as the MIT Admissions Office's publicity booklet. You'll have to dig up more serious material for the course, but Wired is OK for general reading and there are occasional excellent articles.
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The Electronic Frontier Foundation maintains extensive on-line archives. These will be useful throughout the semester, especially the collections on Legislation and Legal issues, and the Privacy, Security, Crypto, and Surveillance Archive. You should also check out current and past issues of their newsletter, the EFFector.
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The Center for Democracy and Technology is an organization concerned with civil liberties in computer and communications technologies. Their home page is a good place to look for information on current legislative action.
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The Electronic Privacy Information Center is a public-interest group that deals with civil liberty issues relating to the National Information Infrastructure. It is also the Washington Office of Privacy International. There are good on-line collections on computer security, privacy, cryptography policy, and free speech.
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Lexis/Nexis: Law review articles, court rulings, and many other resources can be found in Lexis-Nexis Universe. Subscriptions to Lexis/Nexis are licensed by institutions and are restricted. The links to Lexis/Nexis resources in this archive work at MIT only -- they can be accessed only from within the MIT network. Other people who wish to get hold of the Lexis/Nexis material cited in this archive will need to arrange for their own access.
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The U.S. Congress Thomas (Jefferson) public information system provides keyword searches of the Congressional Record.
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Here are two classic science-fiction works that don't have anything to do with the course directly -- or maybe they have everything to do with the course directly, since they describe the futures we may be laying the groundwork for with today's network technology. Food for thought:
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Gibson, William. Neuromancer. From the man who invented the word "cyberspace." If you've read the book and liked it, you may want to look at the sequels, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive.
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Vinge, Vernor. "True Names." in the collection True Names and other Dangers. Written in the early 80s, this short story is frighteningly prophetic of current issues having to do with anonymity, privacy, and security on the network.
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