Guidelines
/ Specifications:
You
will work with a team of 6 class members to develop this project. The result will be an oral presentation
(with some written support materials) by your group. It will be presented to other members of the class and your
instructor and/or TA at a time to be arranged.
To
develop the project, you should investigate the topic, using articles, material
from web sites and/or books, etc. for background. Your project must include:
1.
some
background research
2.
and
some activity, e.g., an interview, a visit, a survey
3.
and
some analysis of the issues involved.
To
do this: Find current
information and don’t just report.
Discuss pros and cons.
Evaluate. Use your own
words. Quote where appropriate. Give citations for facts and quotes (you
will turn in the list of citations.) If
you use articles from the Web, give the URL and the organization sponsoring the
site (There’s a lot of junk and unsupported opinion on the Web so pay attention
to the quality of the sites.)
These are the current student presentation
topics that are used in 1105. You can consider whether any of these should be regular class presentations.
Topics: Many of these ideas come
from web-based Instructors Manual for Sara Baase, A Gift of Fire: Social,
Legal and Ethical Issues in Computing. You
can propose your own topic if you wish.
What’s
happening now? Recent abuses and
improvements. Web site policies,
arguments for and against government regulation, etc. Software like Carnivore, Net Witness.
What’s
being done to protect intellectual property (music, etc.) and encourage sales
on the Net?
What’s
happening with “free” software? What is the impact of Linux, for example? What are the implications for
consumers? For big companies like
Microsoft?
There
are several problem areas: availability of material not appropriate for
children, contact with people who seek to abuse children, and privacy risks
from game sites that ask children for extensive personal and family information
(for marketing purposes). How serious
are these problems? What is bring done
about them? Evaluate various
solutions. Do benefits for children on
the Net outweigh the risks? Can we
arrange to have the benefits without the risks?
Benefits,
problems, issues. Digital face
recognition (e.g., Visionics) and retinal scans are in the news.
Government
has proposed massive monitoring or major computer networks by the government to
protect the security of the nation’s information infrastructure. Is this a good idea? What are the pro and con arguments?
Will
the next wars be fought without bombs?
Will computer networks and computer-controlled infrastructure by the
targets of military hackers? What is
happening now? What kind of defenses
are possible?
Credit
card fraud, identity theft, etc.
9. Violence in video / computer games.
What is the impact on children? There haven’t been many serious studies yet. You could use studies on the impact of violence on television for background. See if you can interview people who write or publish computer games to find out their policies and views about violent games.
From remote consultation to remote surgery. Benefits, possible problems (privacy,
errors, loss of personalized care).
Issues include benefits to crime fighting, invasion of privacy,
problems caused for innocent people because of errors in databases. Describe cases where the computer system
has been very helpful in catching a criminal, and describe cases where it has
caused serious problems. A possible
activity is to interview someone who runs or supervises the use of local law
enforcement computer systems. What databases
do they access? How do they prevent
unauthorized access? Are they aware of
the serious injustices caused by errors in files. How do they try to avoid such problems?
Study progress and safety and social issues related to an
automated system like automated highways and self-driving vehicles.
What are the problems?
Relevance to freedom of speech.
The roles of technical and legislative solutions. What is currently happening? What court cases have been decided so far?
Some aspect not covered in the text, or study some issue in more
detail. One possibility is to focus on
academic freedom issues, censorship of newsgroups on college campuses. Another is to study control of the Net in
other countries.
How are computers used by nature researchers and
organizations. What do
environmentalists think of computers?
Are there ideological conflicts?
Consider the state of computing in several other countries,
e.g., India, South Africa, Haiti.
How will electronic communications and commerce affect the power
of centralized governments? Everyday
life? What will happen as computers are
connected to the human body? Deep Blue
beat a human at chess in 1997. Will
human intelligence be of less value in the future?
How are they used? Are
they really helping to set teach or to babysit? Perhaps visit a school & see what you can find out.
Implications for the economy, for privacy, etc. Which industries will benefit? Which will be hurt? How will daily activities be affected? Are there significant social benefits or
detriments from electronic commerce?
New technology. (1)
Smart cards: uses, benefits, privacy implications and protections in a
particular application or industry.
(2) Several companies are working on technology for micropayments on the
Net. What will be the impact on the
structure of businesses, physical store locations, communities, etc. if we can
easily make little purchases on the Net?
What are the privacy and security issues?
Progress and safety and social issues related to an automated
system like automated highways and self-driving vehicles.
England has an elaborate system, for example.