1. 1 Ethical Issues in Computer Science CSCI 328, Fall 2013 Session 30 Security, Knowledge and Freedom of Expression

2. 2 Is Security an Intrinsic or Instrumental Value? Different types of security: Computer security: Instrumental or intrinsic? If instrumental, what good is it instrumental to?

3. 3 Security is Sociotechnical Hardware and software security tools combine with human behavior. Example: Password protections. Combination of hardware and software requirements. Can be foiled by careless users. Users find work-arounds for convenience. Coshaping: Security systems developed based on who is a threat. Criminals shaped by security systems. Security arms race.

4. 4 Who is to blame for security breaches? 1.Intruder 2.Those responsible for security 3.Personal computer owner. May cost time and money to protect computer from computers, so is it fair to blame owners? Analogy: Complication: In a network, if compromise one computer, the other computers in the network will be compromised too.

5. 5 Trade-Offs Can any means be used to achieve security? Example: Patriot Act. FBI used the Patriot Act to illegally obtain personal information through electronic surveillance. The value of security comes into conflict with the value of privacy. Questions: Should we trade some of our privacy for greater security? If so, where do we draw the line?

6. 6 Reliable Knowledge/Wikipedia Wikipedia articles are produced by users and edited by consensus. Are they reliable? Traditional means of providing reliable knowledge: Credential system Wikipedia provides an alternate way of filtering knowledge. Many articles are accurate. Users need to understand the system by which the information was filtered and produced.

7. 7 Crowd-Sourcing Crowd-sourcing: the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people and especially from the online community rather than from traditional employees or suppliers (Merriam Webster) Example: Protein Folding using a video game (Nature Structural and Molecular Biology) Caution is required: Amateur detective work (Boston Marathon Bombings)

8. 8 Freedom of Expression Freedom of expression is often considered a right. U.S. Constitution (1st amendment) Universal Declaration of Human Rights John Stuart Mill: "...the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation;"

9. 9 Free Speech is Not an Absolute Value Restrictions on free speech: Free speech is restricted when it threatens harm. Communications Decency Act (CDA): Made it a crime to use the internet to disseminate pornography to children under 18. Supreme Court ruled CDA unconstitutional.

10. 10 A Slippery Slope Once we allow one form of censorship, future attempts will build on that precedent. Question is where to draw the line. Technical tools can allow parents to restrict children's access. We should make use of the internet as a sociotechnical system to find a balance between free speech and restricting access of minors to objectionable material.