CS 349: Contemporary Issues in CSCS 301k: Foundations of Logical Thought

Elaine RichAlan Cline

Free Rice

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/ear/cs349/FreeRice.html

Contemporary Issues in CS

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/ear/cs349/

Professional EthicsYour first job after graduation is system administrator for a 200 personprivately held manufacturing company.

The president/owner sends this message to the employees:“I want to encourage each of you to make comments to me about any facet of our operation you care to. Your response should be made through our anonymizer program so that your identity will not be disclosed”

The president/owner finds one response saying:“This company sucks. The only way I find to retaliate for the way I have been treated is sabotage. Every tenth part I turn out is defective.”

The president/owner insists that you examine the computer usage records to determine the identity of the alleged saboteur.

What should you do?

iClickers

http://www1.iclicker.com/

Vacuums and Muddles

• Conceptual muddles

• Policy vacuums

Vacuums and Muddles

• Computer programs become economically significant assets.

• Policy vacuum: How should this intellectual property be protected?

• Conceptual muddle: What is a program? • Is it text? • Is it an invention? • Is it mathematics?

Vacuums and Muddles

• Email

• Policy vacuum: Should the privacy of email communication be protected?

• Conceptual muddle: What is email? Is it more like a:• letter, or a • postcard?

Vacuums and Muddles

• E Cigs

Vacuums and Muddles

• E Cigs

More on E Cigs

Vacuums and Muddles

• E Cigs

• Policy vacuum: How should they be regulated? Can they advertise? Who can by them?

• Conceptual muddle: What are they:

• Cigarettes • Drug delivery vehicles• Something else

Vacuums and Muddles

Then

Yes

No

Now

????

What Do They Have the Right to Do?

Warrant-less demands for cell location data:

Is raw location data protected by your right to privacy in the same way that the content of what you say on your phone is?

• Conceptual muddle: what is cell location?

• Policy vacuum: Can the police get it without a warrant?

Vacuums and Muddles

Are ISPs common carriers?

• Provide equal service to everyone.

• Are not responsible for content.

Vacuums and Muddles

• The police confiscate your laptop, hoping to find incriminating evidence. But you’ve encrypted it.

• Policy vacuum: Can the police force you to decrypt it?

• Conceptual muddle: • Does the 5th Amendment protect you from being forced to

“incriminate yourself”?• Or is this the same as the requirement that, if the police show up

at your house with a warrant, you must unlock the door?

Protecting Sources

• Policy vacuum: Must a blogger reveal sources?

• Conceptual muddle:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/04/too-much-media/

http://newjerseylawreview.blogspot.com/2011/06/blogger-must-reveal-sources-says-nj.html

Cyberwarfare

• Jus ad bellum:• Article 2(4) of the UN Charter prohibits every nation from

using “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.” .

• Conceptual muddle: What constitutes use of force:• Launching a Trojan horse that disrupts military communication? • Hacking a billboard to display porn to disrupt traffic? • Hacking a C&C center so it attacks its own population?

Example Essays

• What I Have Lived For • What’s Right?

• Income Disparity in the Face of Labor Displacement by Technology or What Happens When/If There Aren’t Any Jobs Left for People?

The Video Project

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/ear/cs349/VideosAsExamples/

And the Oscar Goes to …

CS 301k – Foundations of Logical Thought

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/ear/cs301k/

FREGE

http://www.learnlogiconline.org/

https://quest.cns.utexas.edu/instructor/courses/list

The Students’ Background?

• Boolean logic

• Venn diagrams

• Formal proofs

• Modular arithmetic

• Binary numbers

Truth Table App

http://www.truthtables.org/

www.truthtables.org/#/true/!(p&(q|r))=((p&q)|(p&r))

Querium Interface

Querium Interface

Sense or Nonsense

Back to Free Rice

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