CSCI 231 Introduction to Computer Science Concepts

Fall 2011

Readings on social concerns

• security/responsibility:
  • The Enemy Within, Mark Bowden, Atlantic, June 2010 (about the Conficker worm/botnet)
  • Hacked!, James Fallows, Atlantic, Nov 2011 (about consequences of a break-in to an email account)
  • Stories from NPR and from the BBC on Stuxnet and possible warfare-by-malware.
  • A brief NPR story on corporate/international espionage
• privacy:
  • The Wall Street Journal has a collection of references to articles about privacy that grew from a series called "What They Know," originally published in July 2010. See especially The Web's New Gold Mine: Your Secrets plus a pair of editorials, Why Tracking Isn't Bad and The Dangers of Web Tracking.
  • See also an NPR report on a tracking case currently before the Supreme Court.
• property:
  • There are currently bills before the U.S. House and Senate that would require network operators to aid in enforcing anti-piracy complaints. See, for example, this post on the topic at the Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy.
  • See this post on the status of the doctrine of first sale.
• I'm not sure how to classify it, but this Wall Street Journal column asks about the consequences of on-line user agreements.

Other readings