The lectures and readings listed here are subject to change, including in response to current events (i.e., major news items).
Monday, September 13
Location:Zoom
Readings:
Recommended:
- Video, How the Internet Works. Slides here.
Location:Zoom
Readings:
- Philip M. Boffey. Software seen as obstacle in developing “Star Wars”. New York Times, September 16, 1986. LINK.
- Paul Berg, David Baltimore, Sydney Brenner, Richard O. Roblin, and Maxine F. Singer. Summary statement of the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA Molecules. June 1975. LINK.
- Alex Wellerstein. A “purely military” target? Truman's changing language about Hiroshima. Restricted Data, January 19th, 2018. LINK.
- U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee, Center for Disease Control.
Optional:
- Institutional Review Board Guidebook, Introduction, Office of Human Subjects Research, Department of Health and Human Services.
- Patent GB630726, "Improvements in or relating to the transmutation of chemical elements", March 30, 1936 (this is the patent on the atom bomb!)
Ethics
Wednesday, September 22
Readings:
- John Markoff. Apple's engineers, if defiant, would be in sync with ethics code. New York Times, March 18, 2016. LINK.
- Howard Berkes. 30 years after disaster, Challenger engineer still blames himself. NPR, January 28, 2016. LINK.
- Howard Berkes. Challenger engineer who warned of shuttle disaster dies. NPR, March 21, 2016. LINK.
- Howard Berkes. Remembering Roger Boisjoly: he tried to stop shuttle Challenger launch. NPR, February 6, 2012. LINK.
- David L. Parnas. Software aspects of strategic defense systems. Communications of the ACM, December 1985. LINK.
- Stanley Fish. Why we built the ivory tower. New York Times, May 21, 2004. LINK.
- Kim Zetter. A unprecedented look at Stuxnet, the world's first digital weapon. Wired, November 3, 2014. LINK.
- Phillip Rogaway. The moral character of cryptographic work. 2015. LINK.
- David Kravets. Ethics charges filed against DOJ lawyer who exposed Bush-era surveillance. Ars Technica, January 26, 2016. LINK.
- Nicole Perlroth and Mike Isaac. Inside Uber's \$100,000 payment to a hacker, and the fallout. New York Times, January 12, 2018. LINK.
- Debbie Elliot. Challenger: what went wrong? NPR, January 28, 2006. LINK.
- ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct (2018)
- ACM Software Engineering Code of Ethics
- IEEE Code of Ethics
- SAGE/LOPSA/Usenix System Administrators' Code of Ethics
Very optional:
- Nicole Perlroth. This is How They Tell Me the World Ends. Bloomsbury Publishing, New York, 2020.
Readings:
- Clare Garvie and Jonathan Frankle. Facial-recognition software might have a racial bias problem. Atlantic, April 2016. LINK.
- Chloe Albanesius. HP responds to claim of “racist” webcams. PC Magazine, December 22, 2009. LINK.
- Ryan Mac. Facebook apologizes after A.I. puts “primates” label on video of Black men. New York Times, 2021. LINK.
- Jacob Brogan. Google scrambles after software ids photo of two Black people as “gorillas”. Slate (Future Tense blog), June 30, 2015. LINK.
- Florian Tramèr, Vaggelis Atlidakis, Roxana Geambasu, Daniel Hsu, Jean-Pierre Hubaux, Mathias Humbert, Ari Juels, and Huang Lin. Discovering unwarranted associations in data-driven applications with the FairTest testing toolkit. 2015. LINK.
- Nicholas Diakopoulos. Accountability in algorithmic decision-making. ACMqueue, January 25, 2016. LINK.
- Jonathan M. Gitlin. VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal. Ars Technica, December 10, 2015. LINK.
- Danielle Ivory and Hiroko Tabuchijan. Takata emails show brash exchanges about data tampering. New York Times, January 4, 2016. LINK.
- Michael Schrage. Big data's dangerous new era of discrimination. Harvard Business Review, January 29, 2014. LINK.
- Roland L. Trope and Eugene K. Ressler. Mettle fatigue: VW's single-point-of-failure ethics. IEEE Computer, 14(1):12–30, Jan–Feb 2016. LINK.
- Amit Datta, Michael Carl Tschantz, and Anupam Datta. Automated experiments on ad privacy settings: a tale of opacity, choice, and discrimination. In Proceedings of Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium. July 2015. LINK.
- Megan Geuss. Volkswagen details what top management knew leading up to emissions revelations. Ars Technica, March 3, 2016. LINK.
- Charles Riley. Volkswagen's ex-CEO pays company $14 million over his role in the diesel scandal. CNN, June 9, 2021. LINK.
- AP. Germany: fraud trial of ex-VW boss delayed by health issues. AP News, September 9, 2021. LINK.
- Executive Office of the President. Big data: a report on algorithmic systems. May 2016. LINK.
- Jack Ewing. 10 monkeys and a Beetle: inside VW's campaign for “clean diesel”. New York Times, January 25, 2018. LINK.
- Chen Guangcheng. Apple can't resist playing by China's rules. New York Times, January 23, 2018. LINK.
- Anton Troianovski and Adam Satariano. Google and Apple remove app aimed at spurring protest voting in Russia. New York Times, September 17, 2021.
- Roger Parloff. How VW paid \$25 billion for dieselgate — and got off easy. ProPublica, February 6, 2017. LINK.
- Jeb Su. Confirmed: Google terminated Project Dragonfly, its censored Chinese search engine. Forbes, July 19, 2019. LINK.
- Jon Fingas. Google gave user data to Hong Kong officials despite moratorium promise. Engadget, September 11th, 2021. LINK.
- Jack Nicas. Apple removes app that helps Hong Kong protesters track the police. New York Times, 2019. LINK.
- The Wall Street Journal "Facebook Files", via Courseworks
Privacy
Wednesday, September 29
Readings:
- Kashmir Hill and Surya Mattu. The house that spied on me. Gizmodo, February 7, 2018. LINK.
- Samuel Warren and Louis D. Brandeis. The right to privacy. Harvard Law Review, 4:193, 1890. LINK.
- David Brin. The transparent society. Wired, December 1, 1996. LINK.
- Andrea Peterson. Verizon Wireless to allow customers to actually opt-out of controversial supercookie tracking. Washington Post, January 30, 2015. LINK.
- Chris Frey. Revealed: how facial recognition has invaded shops—and your privacy. Guardian, March 3, 2016. LINK.
- Kashmir Hill. Facebook is giving advertisers access to your shadow contact information. Gizmodo, 2018. LINK.
- Phillip Tracy. Verizon may have just enrolled you in a data-collection scheme—here's how to get out. Gizmodo, December 3, 2021. LINK.
- Cyberspace Privacy: A Primer and Proposal, Jerry Kang, Human Rights Magazine 26:1, Winter 1999.
- What's in the driver's license bar code?
- Safe Harbor Overview
Readings:
- Kelly Fiveash. Google right to be forgotten spat returns to Europe's top court. Ars Technica, July 20, 2017. LINK.
- Declan McCullagh. FBI wants records kept of web sites visited. CNET, February 5, 2010. LINK.
- David Robinson. Identifying John Doe: it might be easier than you think. Freedom to Tinker blog, February 8, 2010. LINK.
- Harlan Yu. What third parties know about John Doe. Freedom to Tinker blog, February 9, 2010. LINK.
- Harlan Yu. The traceability of an anonymous online comment. Freedom to Tinker blog, February 10, 2010. LINK.
- Brian Knowlton. Obama's nominee for T.S.A. withdraws. New York Times, January 20, 2010. LINK.
- Helene Cooper. Passport files of 3 candidates were pried into. New York Times, March 22, 2008. LINK.
- Dan Goodin. Equifax website hack exposes data for 143 million us consumers. Ars Technica, September 07, 2017. LINK.
- Vassilis Prevelakis and Diomidis Spinellis. The Athens affair. IEEE Spectrum, 44(7):26–33, July 2007. LINK.
- Cynthia Brumfield. China's PIPL privacy law imposes new data handling requirements. CSO Online, August 30, 2021. LINK.
- Ordering Pizza, ACLU. (Note: blatant propaganda piece...)
- California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
Optional:
- Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967). Full.
- Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979). Condensed, Full.
- Steven M. Bellovin, Matt Blaze, Susan Landau, and Stephanie Pell. It's too complicated: how the Internet upends \em Katz, \em Smith, and electronic surveillance law. Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, 30(1):1–101, Fall 2016. Exceedingly optional—look at the length... LINK.
- US State Privacy Legislation Tracker, September 16, 2021
Wednesday, October 06
Homework due:
Covid Contact Tracing
Location:Zoom
Guest lecturer: Prof. Susan Landau, Tufts University
Readings:
- Susan Landau. Digital exposure tools: design for privacy, efficacy, and equity. Science, September 10, 2021. LINK.
Optional:
- Susan Landau. People Count: Contact-Tracing Apps and Public Health Hardcover. MIT Press, 2021. ISBN 978-0262045711.
No slides will be available after the talk.
Location:Zoom
Readings:
- Sara Kiesler, Jane Siegel, and Timothy W. McGuire. Social psychological aspects of computer-mediated communication. American Psychologist, 39(10):1123–1134, October 1984. LINK.
- Kevin Poulsen. Hackers assault epilepsy patients via computer. Wired, March 28, 2008. LINK.
- Kim Zetter. Judge acquits Lori Drew in cyberbullying case, overrules jury. Wired, July 2, 2007. LINK.
- Bruce Bower. Facebook users keep it real in online profiles. Science News, February 26, 2010. LINK.
- January W. Payne. Hey, you're breaking up on me! Washington Post, February 13, 2007. LINK.
- Charles H. Antin. The boundaries of a breakup. New York Times, November 20, 2009. LINK.
- Jonathan Mahler. Who spewed that abuse? Anonymous Yik Yak app isn't telling. New York Times, March 8, 2015. LINK.
- Justin Jouvenal. A 12-year-old girl is facing criminal charges for using emoji, and she's not the only one. Washington Post, February 27, 2016. LINK.
- Caitlin Dewey. In the battle of Internet mobs vs. the law, the Internet mobs have won. Washington Post, February 17, 2017. LINK.
- Beth Teitell and Callum Borchers. GamerGate anger at women all too real for gamemaker. Boston Globe, October 30 2014. LINK.
- Miranda Katz. 2 Long Island teens arrested, 20 suspended over sexting incident. Gothamist, November 10, 2015. LINK.
- Penelope Green. The Facebook breakup. New York Times, March 12, 2016. LINK.
- Cade Metz. One man's endless hunt for a dopamine rush in virtual reality. New York Times, September 21, 2021. LINK.
Optional:
- Danielle Citron. Law's expressive value in combating cyber gender harassment. Michigan Law Review, 108:373–416, 2009. LINK.
AI
Wednesday, October 13
Location:Zoom
Readings:
- Charles Duhigg. How companies learn your secrets. New York Times, February 16, 2012. LINK.
- David Jackson and Gary Marx. Data mining program designed to predict child abuse proves unreliable, DCFS says. Chicago Tribune, December 6, 2017. LINK.
- Zeynep Tufekci. We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads. TED Talk, September 2017. LINK.
- Lauren Kirchner. New York City moves to create accountability for algorithms. Ars Technica, December 19, 2017. LINK.
- Paul Lewis. “Fiction is outperforming reality”: how YouTube's algorithm distorts truth. Guardian, February 2, 2018. LINK.
- Filip Hrá\u cek. Automatic Donald Trump. LINK.
- Peter Bright. Tay, the neo-Nazi millennial chatbot, gets autopsied. Ars Technica, March 26, 2016. LINK.
- Peter Bright. Microsoft terminates its Tay AI chatbot after she turns into a Nazi. Ars Technica, March 24, 2016. LINK.
- Siddhartha Mukherjee. A.I. versus M.D. New Yorker, April 3, 2017. LINK.
- Julia Angwin, Jeff Larson, Surya Mattu, and Lauren Kirchner. Machine bias. ProPublica, May 23, 2016. LINK.
- Steve Lohr. Facial recognition is accurate, if you're a white guy. New York Times, February 09, 2018. LINK.
- Cliff Kuang. Can A.I. be taught to explain itself? New York Times, November 21, 2017. LINK.
- New York City automated decision systems task force report. November 2019. LINK, Chapter 5.
- Colin Lecher. NYC's algorithm task force was “a waste,” member says. The Verge, November 20, 2019. LINK.
- Steven M. Bellovin, Preetam K. Dutta, and Nathan Reitinger. Privacy and synthetic datasets. Stanford Technology Law Review, 2019. LINK, pp. 22–30.
- Facebook patent application on how to determine user's socioeconomic status
Machine Learning Bias: Issues and Possible Solutions
Location:Zoom
Guest Lecturer: Balachander Krishnamurthy, AT&T Labs—Research
Concepts:
By now most everyone has heard of ML disasters. They occur fairly often and unfailingly receive press coverage every few months. This is not new in CS: this happened with security incidents 2-3 decades ago (and continues to this day) and then with privacy violations (over a decade ago and continuing today). But ML related problems, especially bias, is more insidious, harder to detect, and much harder to fix. Computer scientists and statisticians take full advantage of the large amount of data available today, fast processing capabilities, and apply a variety of clever algorithms to generate predictions in a number of arenas. When they are related to beating chess and go champions, there are few negative consequences (except to the hitherto human champions). However, when ML is used in self-driving cars, replacing Human Resources, facial recognition etc., the risks are higher. In this talk I will cover some well-known ML bias incidents, enumerate the reasons behind them, and suggest ways by which we might be able to reduce (not eliminate) the risks. No background is expected for the material presented.
Optional:
- Kenneth Holstein, Jennifer Wortman Vaughan, Hal Daumé III, Miro Dudik, and Hanna Wallach. Improving fairness in machine learning systems: What do industry practitioners need? In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1–16. 2019. LINK.
- Ajitesh Kumar. Machine learning models: bias mitigation strategies. AI Zone, November 20, 2018. LINK.
- Cathy O'Neil. Weapons of Math Destruction. Broadway Books, New York, 2017.
Note: this lecture will not be recorded nor will slides be
available afterwards.
Wednesday, October 20
Readings:
- Jill Lepore. Scientists use big data to sway elections and predict riots — welcome to the 1960s. Nature, September 17, 2020. LINK.
- Dan M. Kotliar. If then: how the Simulmatics Corporation invented the future. Internet Histories, 5(2):204–206, 2021. LINK, doi:10.1080/24701475.2021.1878651.
- Nicholas Confessore and Daisuke Wakabayashi. How Russia harvested American rage to reshape U.S. politics. New York Times, October 9, 2017. LINK.
- Matea Gold and Elizabeth Dwoskin. Trump campaign's embrace of Facebook shows company's growing reach in elections. Washington Post, October 8, 2017. LINK.
- Natasha Lomas. Cambridge analytica sought to use facebook data to predict partisanship for voter targeting. Techcrunch, October 6, 2020. LINK.
- Josh Dawsey. Russian-funded facebook ads backed Stein, Sanders and Trump. Politico, September 26, 2017. LINK.
- Susan Landau. Russia's hybrid warriors got the White House. now they're coming for America's town halls. Lawfare, September 26, 2017. LINK.
- Sarah Grant, Quinta Jurecic, Matthew Kahn, Matt Tait, and Benjamin Wittes. Russian influence campaign: what's in the latest Mueller indictment. Lawfare, February 16, 2018. LINK.
- Amy X. Zhang, Scott Appling, Nick B. Adams, Martin Robbins, Aditya Ranganathan, Connie Moon Sehat, Emmanuel Vincent, Ed Bice, Sarah Emlen Metz, Norman Gilmore, Jennifer 8. Lee, Sandro Hawke, David Karger, and An Xiao Mina. A structured response to misinformation: defining and annotating credibility indicators in news articles. In The Web Conference. Lyon, April 2018. LINK.
- Matea Gold and Elizabeth Dwoskin. Trump campaign's embrace of Facebook shows company's growing reach in elections. Washington Post, October 8, 2017. LINK.
- Matthew Rosenberg, Nicholas Confessore, and Carole Cadwalladr. How Trump consultants exploited the Facebook data of millions. New York Times, March 17, 2018. LINK.
- Deepa Seetharaman, Jeff Horwitz, and Justin. Scheck. Facebook says ai will clean up the platform. its own engineers have doubts. Wall Street Journal, 2021. On Courseworks.
- Natasha Lomas. Researchers show facebook's ad tools can target a single user. Techcrunch, October 15, 2021. LINK.
- Lukasz Olejnik. Technological soft influence on elections. Security, Privacy & Tech Inquiries (blog), August 10, 2016. LINK.
- Davey Alba. YouTube's stronger election misinformation policies had a spillover effect on Twitter and Facebook, researchers say. New York Times, October 14, 2021. LINK.
Very optional:
- Jill Lepore. If Then : How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future. Liveright Publishing Corporation, New York, NY, 2020.
Crime/National Security
Readings:
- Nathaniel Popper. Easiest path to riches on the web? An initial coin offering. New York Times, June 23, 2017. LINK.
- Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin: a peer-to-peer electronic cash system. 2009. LINK.
- P F Syverson, D M Goldschlag, and M G Reed. Anonymous connections and onion routing. In IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, 44–54. Oakland, California, 4–7 1997. LINK.
- Roger Dingledine, Nick Mathewson, and Paul Syverson. Tor: the second-generation onion router. In Proceedings of the 13th USENIX Security Symposium. August 2004. LINK.
- Joshuah Bearman and Tomer Hanuka. The rise & fall of Silk Road, Part I. Wired, April 2015. LINK.
- Joshuah Bearman and Tomer Hanuka. The rise & fall of Silk Road, Part II. Wired, May 2015. LINK.
- Andy Greenberg. Why Facebook just launched its own “Dark Web” site. Wired, October 31, 2014. LINK.
- Carl Franzen. Facebook just created a new Tor link for users who wish to remain anonymous. The Verge, October 31, 2014. LINK.
- Cyrus Farivar and Sean Gallagher. Feds bust through huge Tor-hidden child porn site using questionable malware. Ars Technica, July 16, 2015. LINK.
- Joseph Cox. The FBI's “unprecedented” hacking campaign targeted over a thousand computers. Vice, January 5, 2016. LINK.
- Nick Hagar, Geordan Tilley, Alex Duner, and Nicolas Rivero. A wave of non-criminal users is joining the dark web and stepping into the middle of a privacy battle. Caught in the Crossfire, March 10, 2016. LINK.
- Chico Harlan. “Bitcoin is my potential pension”: what's driving people in Kentucky to join the craze. Washington Post, February 3, 2018. LINK.
- Timothy B. Lee. Want to really understand how bitcoin works? Here's a gentle primer. Ars Technica, December 15, 2017. LINK.
- Kim Nilsson. Kleiman v Craig Wright: the bitcoins that never were. Wizsec blog, February 27, 2018. LINK.
- Nathaniel Popper. A hacking of more than \$50 million dashes hopes in the world of virtual currency. New York Times, June 17, 2016. LINK.
- Ed Felten. Blockchain: what is it good for? Freedom to Tinker blog, February 26, 2018. LINK.
- John Schwartz. Blockchain or blockheads? Bitcoin mania mints believers and skeptics. New York Times, January 12, 2018. LINK.
- Tim De Chant. Ted Cruz says bitcoin will stabilize Texas electric grid—here's why he's wrong. Ars Technica, October 13, 2021. LINK.
- Brian X. Chen. It's time to stop paying for a VPN. New York Times, October 6, 2021. LINK.
- Kyle Orland. Ars technica's non-fungible guide to NFTs. Ars Technica, March 29, 2021. LINK.
- Tor: Hidden Service Protocol
- Facebook, hidden services, and https certs.
- Tor: Overview
Sunday, October 24
Homework due:
- Essay 2 (Privacy)
Wednesday, October 27
Readings:
- Shane Harris. Hacking the Hill. Nextgov, December 19, 2008. LINK.
- Steve Ragan. Ransomware takes Hollywood hospital offline, \$3.6M demanded by attackers. CSO Online, February 14, 2016. LINK.
- Dan Goodin. A series of delays and major errors led to massive Equifax breach. Ars Technica, October 2, 2017. LINK.
- Dan Goodin. Failure to patch two-month-old bug led to massive Equifax breach. Ars Technica, September 14, 2017. LINK.
- John Markoff and David Barboza. Researchers trace data theft to intruders in China. New York Times, April 5, 2010. LINK.
- Kim Zetter. A unprecedented look at Stuxnet, the world's first digital weapon. Wired, November 3, 2014. LINK.
- Thomas Fox-Brewster. Russians hacked White House via State Department, claims report. Forbes, April 8, 2015. LINK.
- Angelique Chrisafis and Samuel Gibbs. French media groups to hold emergency meeting after Isis cyber-attack. Guardian, 2015. LINK.
- Catalin Cimpanu. Samsam ransomware hits hospitals, city councils, ICS firms. Bleeping Computer, January 19, 2018. LINK.
- Lily Hay Newman. Darkside ransomware hit Colonial Pipeline—and created an unholy mess. Wired, May 10, 2021. LINK.
- Joseph Menn and Christopher Bing. Governments turn tables on ransomware gang REvil by pushing it offline. Reuters, October 21, 2021. LINK.
- Lily Hay Newman. How hackers hijacked thousands of high-profile YouTube accounts. Ars Technica, October 21, 2021. LINK.
- Catalin Cimpanu. Crypto-miner found hidden inside three npm libraries. The Record, October 20, 2021. LINK.
- David E. Sanger. Ignoring sanctions, Russia renews broad cybersurveillance operation. New York Times, October 25, 2021. LINK.
- Dan Goodin. Solarwinds hack that breached gov networks poses a “grave risk” to the nation. Ars Technica, December 17, 2020. LINK.
Readings:
- Bruce Schneier. Did NSA put a secret backdoor in new encryption standard? Wired, November 15, 2007. LINK.
- Harold Abelson, Ross Anderson, Steven M. Bellovin, Josh Benaloh, Matt Blaze, Whitfield Diffie, John Gilmore, Matthew Green, Susan Landau, Peter G. Neumann, Ronald L. Rivest, Jeffrey I. Schiller, Bruce Schneier, Michael A. Specter, and Daniel J. Weitzner. Keys under doormats: mandating insecurity by requiring government access to all data and communications. Journal of Cybersecurity, September 2015. LINK, doi:10.1093/cybsec/tyv009.
- Matt Blaze. Key escrow from a safe distance: looking back at the Clipper Chip. In Proceedings of ACSAC '11. 2011. LINK.
- Matthew Green. Why can't Apple decrypt your iPhone? A Few Thoughts on Cryptographic Engineering, October 4, 2014. LINK.
- James Orenstein. In re order requiring Apple, Inc. to assist in the execution of a search warrant issued by this court. United States District Court, Eastern District of New York, February 29, 2016. Case 1:15-mc-01902-JO, Document 29. LINK.
- Sheri Pym. In the matter of the search of an Apple iPhone seized during the execution of a search warrant on a black Lexus IS300, California license plate 35KGD203. United States District Court, Central District of California, February 16, 2016. No. ED 15-0451M. LINK.
- Kenneth W. Dam and Herbert S. Lin, editors. Cryptography's Role in Securing the Information Society. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1996. Executive summary only. LINK.
- Testimony for House Judiciary Committee hearing on “The Encryption Tightrope: balancing Americans' security and privacy”. March 1, 2016. LINK, Landau's written testimony.
- Whitfield Diffie and Susan Landau. Privacy on the Line. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, second edition, 2007. LINK, Preface, Introduction, Conclusions.
- Daniel Richman. Getting encryption onto the front burner. Lawfare, October 26, 2017. LINK.
- Computer Science and Telecommunications Board. Decrypting the Encryption Debate: A Framework for Decision Makers. National Academies Press, 2018. ISBN 978-0-309-47153-4. LINK, Summary and Chapter 7 only.
- Third report of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office on smartphone encryption and public safety. November 2017. LINK.
- Rod J. Rosenstein. Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein delivers remarks on encryption at the United States Naval Academy. October 10, 2017. LINK.
- Amie Stepanovich and Michael Karanicolas. If you criminalize security, only criminals will be secure. Just Security, March 2, 2018. LINK.
- Logan Koepke, Emma Weil, Urmila Janardan, Tinuola Dada, and Harlan Yu. Mass extraction: the widespread power of U.S. law enforcement to search mobile phones. Upturn, October 2020. LINK, Executive summary.
- Hal Abelson, Ross Anderson, Steven M. Bellovin, Josh Benaloh, Matt Blaze, Jon Callas, Whitfield Diffie, Green, Susan Landau, Peter G. Neumann, Ronald L. Rivest, Jeffrey I. Schiller, Bruce Schneier, A. Specter, Vanessa Teague, and Carmela Troncoso. Bugs in our pockets: the risks of client-side scanning. October 15, 2021. LINK, Executive summary.
- Matt Blaze. My life as an international arms courier. January 1995. LINK.
- Jon Brodkin. Amid backlash, Apple will change photo-scanning plan but won't drop it completely. Ars Technica, September 03, 2021. LINK.
- "Notes on key escrow meeting with NSA", Matt Blaze, February 2, 1994
Wednesday, November 03
Location:Zoom
Readings:
- Tadayoshi Kohno, Adam Stubblefield, Aviel D. Rubin, and Dan S. Wallach. Analysis of an electronic voting system. In IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy. May 2004. LINK.
- Matt Blaze. Hearing on cybersecurity of voting machines. November 29, 2017. Testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Subcommittee on Information Technology and Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Affairs. LINK.
- Celeste Katz. Hack-vulnerable voting machines a “national security threat”, experts warn. Newsweek, October 10, 2017. LINK.
- Avi Rubin. My day at the polls. Avi Rubin's Blog, November 4, 2008. LINK.
- Nicole Perlroth. In election interference, it's what reporters didn't find that matters. New York Times, Sept. 1, 2017. LINK.
- Michael Wines Nicole Perlroth and Matthew Rosenberg. Russian election hacking efforts, wider than previously known, draw little scrutiny. New York Times, Sept. 1, 2017. LINK.
- Matt Blaze. Is the e-voting honeymoon over? Exhaustive Search, March 23, 2009. LINK.
- Kim Zetter. Virginia finally drops America's “worst voting machines”. Wired, August 17, 2015. LINK.
- Cynthia McFadden, William M. Arkin, and Kevin Monahan. Russians penetrated U.S. voter systems, says top U.S. official. NBC News, February 8, 2018. LINK.
- Richard Carback, David Chaum, Jeremy Clark, John Conway, Aleksander Essex, Paul S. Herrnson, Travis Mayberry, Stefan Popoveniuc, Ronald L. Rivest, Emily Shen, Alan T. Sherman, and Poorvi L. Vora. Scantegrity II municipal election at Takoma Park: the first E2E binding governmental election with ballot privacy. In Usenix Security. 2010. LINK.
- Mark Lindeman and Philip B Stark. A gentle introduction to risk-limiting audits. IEEE Security & Privacy, 10(5):42–49, 2012. LINK.
- Ann Marie Awad. Colorado launches first in the nation post-election audits. NPR, November 22, 2017. LINK.
Important:
- National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. Securing the Vote: Protecting American Democracy. The National Academies Press, Washington, DC, 2018. ISBN 978-0-309-47647-8. LINK, doi:10.17226/25120.
Optional:
- Matt Blaze, Jake Braun, Harri Hursti, Joseph Lorenzo Hall, Margaret MacAlpine, and Jeff Moss. Defcon 25 voting machine hacking village. September 2017. LINK.
- Hacking Democracy, HBO film
Free Speech
Location:Zoom
Readings:
- Cyrus Farivar. Craigslist personals, some subreddits disappear after FOSTA passage. Ars Technica, March 23, 2018. LINK.
- Zeynep Tufekci. It's the (democracy-poisoning) golden age of free speech. Wired, January 16, 2018. LINK.
- Mike Isaac. Facebook, facing bias claims, shows how editors and algorithms guide news. New York Times, May 13, 2016. LINK.
- Farhad Manjoo. Facebook's bias is built-in, and bears watching. New York Times, May 11, 2016. LINK.
- Catherine Buni and Soraya Chemaly. The secret rules of the Internet. Verge, April 13, 2016. LINK.
- Kashmir Hill. Maybe the real Facebook suppression is of shoddy news, not conservative news. Fusion, May 11, 2016. LINK.
- Michael Nunez. Former Facebook workers: we routinely suppressed conservative news. Gizmodo, May 9, 2016. LINK.
- ACLU v. Reno, 929 F. Supp. 824 (1996). Full.
- Matt Burgess and Liat Clark. The UK wants to block online porn. Here's what we know. Wired UK, March 12, 2018. LINK.
- Alina Selyukh. Section 230: a key legal shield for Facebook, Google is about to change. WBUR, March 21, 2018. LINK.
- Talley v. California, 362 U.S. 60 (1960). Full.
- McIntyre v. Ohio Election Commission, 514 U.S. 334 (1995). Full.
- Karen Turner. Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study. Washington Post, March 28, 2016. LINK.
- Carter Jernigan and Behram F.T. Mistree. Gaydar: Facebook friendships expose sexual orientation. First Monday, October 5, 2009. LINK.
- David McCabe. Anonymity no more? Age checks come to the web. New York Times, October 27, 2021. LINK.
- Adam Satariano. How a mistake by YouTube shows its power over media. New York Times, October 28, 2021. LINK.
- Scott Bomboy. Supreme Court narrowly protects student free speech online. Constitution Daily, June 24, 2021. LINK.
- EFF article on Sapient v. Geller
- EFF article on Online Policy Group v. Diebold
Optional:
- Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., 141 S. Ct. 2038 (June 24, 2021). Full.
Very optional:
- Jeff Kosseff. The Twenty-Six Words that Created the Internet. Cornell University Press, 2019.
Friday, November 05
Homework due:
- Essay 3 (Artificial intelligence)
Wednesday, November 10
Readings:
- Ben Nimmo. #BotSpot: Twelve ways to spot a bot. DFRlab Blog, August 28, 2017. LINK.
- Nicole Perlroth. Fake Twitter followers become multimillion-dollar business. New York Times, April 5, 2013. LINK.
- Mark Hansen. The follower factory. New York Times, January 27, 2018. LINK.
- Nitasha Tiku and Casey Newton. Twitter CEO: “We suck at dealing with abuse”. The Verge, February 4, 2015. LINK.
- Joe Mullin. Prenda Law “copyright trolls” Steele and Hansmeier arrested. Ars Technica, December 16, 2016. LINK.
- Kristen V. Brown. How Twitter treated death threats against me. Fusion, March 22, 2016. LINK.
- Sara Baker. Why online anonymity is critical for women. WMC Speech Project, March 11, 2016. LINK.
- Charlie Warzel. Twitter says this behavior doesn't qualify as abuse. BuzzFeed, August 31 2016. LINK.
- Travis M. Andrews. “A great purge?”: Twitter suspends Richard Spencer, other prominent alt-right accounts. Washington Post, 2016. LINK.
- Steven M. Bellovin. Exploiting linkages for good. SMBlog (blog), December 31, 2007. LINK.
- Danielle Citron. Cyber civil rights. Boston University Law Review, 89:61–125, 2009. LINK.
- Richard Clayton. Anonymity and Traceability in Cyberspace. PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, Darwin College, 2005. Also published as technical report UCAM-CL-TR-653. LINK, Chapter 3.
- Elle Hunt. Milo Yiannopoulos, rightwing writer, permanently banned from Twitter. Guardian, July 20, 2016. LINK.
- Kate Cox. Facebook, Instagram ban Trump through at least Inauguration Day. Ars Technica, January 07, 2021. LINK.
- Kate Cox. Donald Trump has finally earned a permaban from Twitter. Ars Technica, January 08, 2021. LINK.
- Kate Klonick. Inside the making of Facebook's Supreme Court. New Yorker, February 12, 2021. LINK.
- Facebook Oversight Board. Oversight board upholds former President Trump's suspension, finds Facebook failed to impose proper penalty. Case 2021-001-FB-FBR, May 2021. LINK.
- Nick Clegg. In response to Oversight Board, Trump Suspended for two years; will only be reinstated if conditions permit. Facebook press release, June 4, 2021. LINK.
- Karissa Bell. Facebook whistleblower will brief the oversight board on “cross check” rules for VIPs. Engadget, October 11, 2021. LINK.
Readings:
- Ari Shapiro. On libel and the law, U.S. and U.K. go separate ways. NPR, March 21, 2015. LINK.
- David Carnes. Libel law: past, present and future. All About Law, December 17, 2019. LINK.
- Rachel Donadio. Larger threat is seen in Google case. New York Times, February 24, 2010. LINK.
- Paul Mozur. China presses its internet censorship efforts across the globe. New York Times, March 02, 2018. LINK.
- Colin George. Angela Wrightson murder: how the media fought to report the case. BBC News, April 7, 2016. LINK.
- Tetyana Lokot. Twitter reports massive increase in Russian government's content removal requests. Global Voices, March 6, 2016. LINK.
- Robert Mackey. Turkey wants ban on mocking its leader enforced abroad too. The Intercept, March 30, 2016. LINK.
- Mark Scott. Google fined by French privacy regulator. New York Times, March 24, 2016. LINK.
- Aamna Mohdin. Facebook, Google, and Twitter have agreed to apply Germany's strict anti-hate speech law online. Quartz, December 16, 2015. LINK.
- Michee Smith. Updating our “right to be forgotten” Transparency Report. Google blog, February 26, 2018. LINK.
- Eric Pfanner. Italian appeals court acquits 3 Google executives in privacy case. New York Times, December 21, 2012. LINK.
- Adam Satariano and Paul Mozur. Russia is censoring the internet, with coercion and black boxes. New York Times, October 22, 2021. LINK.
- Leo Kelion. Google wins landmark right to be forgotten case. BBC News, September 24, 2019. LINK.
- Pretrial Publicity
Wednesday, November 17
Homework due:
- Essay 4 (Computers and crime and/or national security)
Intellectual Property
Readings:
- Zvi S. Rosen. Player pianos and the origins of compulsory licensing – some details of its origins. Mostly IP History, April 27, 2018. LINK.
- Wendy Seltzer. My first YouTube: Super Bowl highlights or lowlights. Musings of a Techie Lawyer, February 8, 2007. LINK.
- Ted Johnson. Sherlock Holmes to remain in public domain after Supreme Court declines case. Variety, November 3, 2014. LINK.
- Jonathan Bailey. Peter Pan and the copyright that never grew up. Plagiarism Today, October 21, 2015. LINK.
- Camila Domonoske. Monkey can't own copyright to his selfie, federal judge says. NPR, January 7, 2016. LINK.
- Anderson J. Duff. “Let's take a #Selfie,” said the monkey: a case of questionable copyrights. Wired, September 2014. LINK.
- Zachary Crockett. How Mickey Mouse evades the public domain. Priceonomics, January 7, 2016. LINK.
- Cyrus Farivar. Playboy says linking to Playmate archive violates copyright, judge says no way. Ars Technica, February 16, 2018. LINK.
- Cyrus Farivar. Monkey-selfie lawsuit finally ends: court affirms adorable macaque can't sue. Ars Technica, April 23, 2018. LINK.
- Andres Guadamuz. Can the monkey selfie case teach us anything about copyright law? WIPO Magazine, February 2018. LINK.
- Harley Geiger. Thawing out the chilling effect of DMCA Section 1201. Rapid7 blog, November 15, 2021. LINK.
- Columbia Copyright Advisory Office
- Creative Commons
- Summary of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (1886)
Optional:
- Eriq Gardner. Will the Supreme Court finally declare copyright infringement as “theft”? Hollywood Reporter, November 17, 2021. LINK.
- Gene Maddaus. Miramax sues Quentin Tarantino over `Pulp Fiction' NFT auction. Variety, November 16, 2021. LINK.
- Eletronic Frontier Foundation. Unintended consequences—16 years under the DMCA. September 16, 2014. LINK.
- A.V. Ex Rel. Vanderhye v. iParadigms, 562 F.3d 630 (2009). Full.
Readings:
- Daniel Nazer. New Hampshire court: First Amendment protects criticism of “patent troll”. EFF Deep Links (blog), April 12, 2018. LINK.
- Susan Decker and Dennis Robertson. Apple must pay $502.6 million to VirnetX, federal jury rules. Bloomberg News, April 10, 2018. LINK.
- Gerard N. Magliocca. Blackberries and barnyards: patent trolls and the perils of innovation. Notre Dame Law Review, 82(5):1809–1838, 2007. LINK.
- Steven M. Bellovin. The oldest algorithmic patent. SMBlog (blog), May 21, 2013. LINK.
- Charles Arthur. App developers withdraw from US as patent fears reach “tipping point”. Guardian, July 15, 2011. LINK.
- Motoko Rich. Making the case for iPad e-book prices. New York Times, February 28, 2010. LINK.
- National Archives. Coloring book of patents. 2016. LINK.
- Ben Lee. Twitter's surprising solution to the patent problem: let employees control them. Wired, February 21, 2013. LINK.
- Method of exercising a cat, Kevin T. Amiss and Martin H. Abbott, U.S. patent 5,443,036, issued Aug 22, 1995.
- What is a Patent?, up to but not including the section titled "The United States Patent And Trademark Office"
- The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Eric S. Raymond.
- Software patents—Obstacles to software development, Richard Stallman, 25 March 2002.
Skim:
- W3C Patent Policy, 5 February 2004.
- Business method protecting jokes, Timothy Wace Roberts, U.S. patent application 10/569,506, filed Aug 24, 2004.
Wednesday, December 01
Homework due:
- Essay 5 (Computers and free speech)
Location:Zoom
Readings:
- David Kravets. Supreme court asked to nullify the Google trademark. Ars Technica, August 20, 2017. LINK.
- Caitlin Dewey. From TedCruz.ca to TaylorSwift.porn: how the golden age of domain-trolling was born. Washington Post, March 25, 2015. LINK.
- Joshua Quittner. Billions registered. Wired, October 1, Billions Registered. LINK.
- Eric Pfanner. Luxury goods makers complain about ads for counterfeit items. New York Times, March 21, 2010. LINK.
- Aarian Marshall. Waymo v. Uber's big question: what on Earth is a trade secret, anyway? Wired, February 6, 2018. LINK.
- Kathleen Day. 3 accused in theft of Coke secrets. Washington Post, July 6, 2006. LINK.
- Rebecca Tushnet. Uber and out: court grants limited but still tricky injunction against Uber. Rebecca Tushnet's 43(B)log, February 18 2016. LINK.
- Justin T. Westbrook. Uzi Nissan spent 8 years fighting the car company with his name. He nearly lost everything to win. Jalopnik, February 22, 2018. LINK.
- WIRED. Doom's creator goes after “Doomscroll”. Ars Technica, November 13, 2021. LINK.
- Mike Masnick. Hey North Face! our story about you flipping out over 'Hey Fuck Face' is not trademark infringement. Techdirt, November 15, 2021. LINK.
- Financial Times. Lord of the rings-themed cryptocurrency gets thrown into mount doom. Ars Technica, November 23, 2021. LINK.
- Kyle Jahner. Pfizer says employee stole files with Covid vaccine secrets. Bloomberg Law, November 24, 2021. LINK.
- Trademark Basics (Read ``Learning the Essentials'')
- Obtaining and Protecting Domain Names, American Bar Association
- How to Choose a License for Your Work
- "Trade Secret Protection for Source Code", July 17, 2001, Belinda M. Juran
- Which Creative Commons Licence is Right for Me?, Creative Commons Australia
Employment
Readings:
- Timothy Aeppel. What clever robots mean for jobs. Wall Street Journal, February 24, 2015. On Courseworks.
- Vinton G. Cerf. Does innovation create or destroy jobs? Commun. ACM, 57(12):7–7, November 2014. LINK, doi:10.1145/2685035.
- Matthew Ingram. Will startups get squeezed by a tech hiring binge? Gigaom, April 16, 2010. LINK.
- Zeynep Tufekci. The machines are coming. New York Times, April 18, 2015. LINK.
- Sylvia Marino. The art of 10 years of telecommuting. New York Times, April 17, 2010. LINK.
- Cyrus Farivar. Grubhub drivers are contractors—not employees—judge rules. Ars Technica, February 8, 2018. LINK.
- Ángel González. Hands, heads and robots work in sync at Amazon warehouses. Seattle Times, April 9, 2016. LINK.
- Moshe Y. Vardi. Are robots job creators? New Republic, April 6, 2016. LINK.
- Jed Kolko. Republican-leaning cities are at greater risk of job automation. FiveThirtyEight, February 17, 2016. LINK.
- David Kravets. Judge calls Uber algorithm “genius,” green-lights surge-pricing lawsuit. Ars Technica, 2016. LINK.
- Sam Machkovech. Report: robots, other advances will cost humans 5.1 million jobs by 2020. Ars Technica, January 18, 2016. LINK.
- Cora Lewis and Johana Bhuiyan. What striking Uber drivers are up against. BuzzFeed, February 9, 2016. LINK.
- Megan Geuss. Uber drivers are employees, California Labor Commission ruling suggests. Ars Technica, June 17, 2015. LINK.
- David Kravets. Appeals court halts class action on whether Uber drivers are employees. Ars Technica, April 6, 2016. LINK.
- Cyrus Farivar. Uber settles class-action labor lawsuits in Massachusetts, California. Ars Technica, April 22, 2016. LINK.
- Erin Winick. Every study we could find on what automation will do to jobs, in one chart. MIT Technology Review, January 25, 2018. LINK.
- Alexis C. Madrigal. Could self-driving trucks be good for truckers? Atlantic, February 2018. LINK.
- Jarrett Walker. Apps are not transforming the urban transport business. Human Transit blog, February 2, 2018. LINK.
- Cyrus Farivar. Uber really doesn't want its drivers to be considered employees. Ars Technica, September 21, 2017. LINK.
- Noam Scheiber. Gig economy business model dealt a blow in California ruling. New York Times, April 30, 2018. LINK.
- Timothy B. Lee. Report: software bug led to death in Uber's self-driving crash. Ars Technica, May 07, 2018. LINK.
- Kate Conger. Uber and Lyft drivers in California will remain contractors. New York Times, November 4, 2020. LINK.
- Kate Conger. California's gig worker law is unconstitutional, judge rules. New York Times, August 20, 2021. LINK.
- Anne Helen Petersen and Charlie Warzel. Remote work is failing young employees. New York Times, 2021. LINK.
Optional:
- Martin H. Malin and Henry H. Perritt. The National Labor Relations Act in cyberspace: union organizing in electronic workplaces. University of Kansas Law Review, 2000. LINK.
- Harrison C. Kuntz. Crossed wires: outdated perceptions of electronic communications in the NLRB's Purple Communications decision. Washington University Law Review,, 2016. LINK.
- Jeffrey M. Hirsch. Worker collective action in the digital age. West Virginia Law Review, 117(3):921–960, 2015. LINK.
- Communs. Workers of Am., AFL-CIO v. NLRB, 6 F.4th 15 (2021).
Wednesday, December 08
Readings:
- Priya Anand and Mark Bergen. Big teacher is watching: how AI spyware took over schools. Bloomberg Businessweek, October 28, 2021. LINK.
- Michelle Miller. \$610k settlement in school webcam spy case. CBS News, October 21, 2010. LINK.
- DeVan L. Hankerson, Cody Venzke, Elizabeth Laird, Hugh Grant-Chapman, and Dhanaraj Thakur. Online and observed: student privacy implications of school-issued devices and student activity monitoring software. CDT, September 2021. LINK, Executive summary.
- John Lai and Nicole O. WIdmar. Revisiting the digital divide in the COVID-19 era. Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, 43(1):458–464, 2020. LINK.
- Emily A. Vogels, Andrew Perrin, Lee Rainie, and Monica Anderson. 53% of Americans say the Internet has been essential during the COVID-19 outbreak. Pew Research Center report, April 30, 2020. LINK.
- John Roese. Covid-19 exposed the digital divide. here's how we can close it. World Economic Forum, January 27, 2021. LINK.
- Anita Ramsetty and Cristin Adams. Impact of the digital divide in the age of COVID-19. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 27(7):1147–1148, 2020. LINK.
- Laura Stelitano, Sy Doan, Ashley Woo, Melissa Kay Diliberti, Julia H. Kaufman, and Daniella Henry. The digital divide and COVID-19. Research Report RR-A134-3, RAND Corporation, 2020. LINK.
- Sara Ashley O'Brien. Covid-19 vaccine rollout puts a spotlight on unequal internet access. CNN, February 4, 2020. LINK.
- Stuart Andreason, Pearse Haley, Sarah Miller, and Mels de Zeeuw. The digital divide and the pandemic: working from home and broadband and internet access. Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Center for Workforce and Economic Opportunity, June 29, 2020. LINK.
- Matteo Sostero, Santo Milasi, John Hurley, Enrique Fernández-Macías, and Martina Bisello. Teleworkability and the COVID-19 crisis: a new digital divide? JRC Working Papers Series on Labour, Education and Technology 2020/05, European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), 2020. LINK.
- Andrew Perrin and Sara Atske. 7% of Americans don't use the internet. Who are they? Pew Research Center report, April 2, 2021. LINK.
- Jon Brodkin. Verizon wiring up 500K homes with FiOS to settle years-long fight with NYC. Ars Technica, November 30, 2020. LINK.
- HHS. Persons in low-income households have less access to internet services. HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, March 22, 2021. LINK.
- Cecilia Kang. Parking lots have become a digital lifeline. New York Times, May 5, 2020. LINK.
- Monica Chin. An ed-tech specialist spoke out about remote testing software — and now he's being sued. The Verge, October 22, 2020. LINK.
- Janet Morrissey. Desperate for workers, restaurants turn to robots. New York Times, October 19, 2021. LINK.
- Greg Rosalsky. Why are so many Americans quitting their jobs? NPR, October 19, 2021. LINK.
- Kate Morgan. The Great Resignation: how employers drove workers to quit. BBC News, July 1, 2021. LINK.
Optional:
- FCC. 2020 broadband deployment report. April 20, 2020. LINK.
Location:Zoom
Readings:
- Megan McArdle. A farewell to free journalism. Washington Post, April 26, 2018. LINK.
- Matthew Karnitschnig and Chris Spillane. Plan to make Google pay for news hits rocks. Politico, February 5, 2017. LINK.
- John Herrman. Media websites battle faltering ad revenue and traffic. New York Times, April 17, 2016. LINK.
- Jim Rutenberg. For news outlets squeezed from the middle, it's bend or bust. New York Times, April 17, 2016. LINK.
- Dylan Byers. Buzzfeed buzzkill: its stunning revenue miss goes viral. CNN Money, April 12, 2016. LINK.
- Ravi Somaiya and John Herrman. Mashable announces personnel shifts and job cuts. New York Times, April 7, 2016. LINK.
- Marc Tracy. Local news outlets could reap $1.7 billion in Build Back Better aid. New York Times, November 28, 2021. LINK.
- Fuencisla Clemares. Google News to return to Spain. Google blog, November 3, 2021. LINK.
- James Vincent. Google News to relaunch in Spain after mandatory payments to newspapers scrapped. The Verge, November 3, 2021. LINK.
- Margaret Sullivan. What happens to democracy when local journalism dries up? Washington Post, November 30, 2021. LINK.
- Megan McArdle, Twitter thread on the need for paid journalism, April 26, 2018.
Note well: this class will be via Zoom; the last 30 or so minutes will be an interactive
discussion.
Friday, December 10
Homework due:
- Essay 6 (Computers and intellectual property)
Monday, December 27
Homework due:
- Essay 7 (Computers and employment)