Week 10

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Harvard Law School

MIT 6.805/6.806/STS085: Ethics and Law on the Electronic Frontier

Week 10

There is no Monday class this week. The Thursday class will meet at Harvard.

Thursday class at Harvard: Cybersecurity (Zittrain)

The protection of the public safety and the protection of civil liberties are often in tension. Some fear that the national digital infrastructure is at risk and that governments need powerful tools in defense. Others contend that the fears are overblown, and that the real fear is the undue intrusion by government into the lives of private, net-using individuals.

Readings:

• Background
  • "Critical Infrastructure Commission Report."
• Offensive Measures:
  • Review week 7 Government Surveillance readings.
• Defensive Measures:
  • Carolyn Meinel, "How Hackers Break In & How They Are Caught."
  • Phillip Zimmerman, "Cryptography for the Internet," Scientific American, October 1998.
• Government Response to Cases:
  • AUSA Daniel A. Morris, "Tracking a Computer Hacker."
  • Kent Alexander & Scott Charney, "Computer Crime," Emory Law Review Vol. 45, No. 3 (Summer 1996) Sections on "Understanding the Law Enforcement Challenge" & "Developing Computer Crime Policy" pp. 933-945 & 954-957.
• Targets
  • General Public: Melissa Virus & DDS Attacks - news summaries
  • Government: Hacker Access NASA Jet Propulsion Labs
• Penalties:
  • Background: John Markoff, "Hacker Case Underscores Internet's Vulnerability" New York Times, (2/17/95).
  • Parole Terms
• Optional
  • Kent Alexander & Scott Charney, "Computer Crime," Emory Law Review Vol. 45, No. 3 (Summer 1996) especially Section on Understanding the Law Enforcement Challenge" pp. 933-945.
  • Larry Lessig, "Preventing Intrusion through Encryption," Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, pp. 30 - 42 (with particular attention to pp. 35 - 40).

Writing Assignment, Due by the End of the Week

This assigment is part of preparing for your term paper/project.

Read the guidelines and expectations for term papers, so you know what is expected for the end of the semester.

The assignment this week does not require a lot of writing, but it will require a lot of research and thinking. Don't underestimate how hard this will be.

Submit papers by sending them in email to the instructors (plan ASCII text preferred). If you are working with a group, please submit only one assignment per group.

For this assignment, want you to tell us

1. The title of your paper.
2. The names of the people working on it (which could be just you, if you are working alone.)
3. The name of your advisor for the paper, and confirmation that you have contacted your advisor and gotten a reply. (That is, we want to make sure you've contacted your advisor by now.)
4. A well written, one-paragraph statement of the thesis of your paper. If you have not done enough research yet to come up with a final thesis, write a tentative thesis.
5. The key arguements you plan to use to support your thesis. You should have at least two arguments. Write a short paragraph for each argument.
6. List at least four references that you will use in your paper.

Please do not underestimate how hard this is to do well.

Note especially, that your thesis is supposed to be the contribution of your paper, the thing that you are going to conclude, the position you are going to argue. A thesis is not simply a statement of the topic area you plan to investigate. It is not simply a description of why some topic is important or interesting. We asked you to try to articulate a thesis a couple of weeks ago. This week, we'd like you to refine that, and give the real idea that you plan to develop your paper around.

In essence, we are asking you to create the central ideas of your paper this week. We understand that this might change after you do more research, but our goal now is to make sure that you have a well-formed, compelling thesis. For more information on what a thesis is, see the essay Thesis Writing by Craig Waddell of the RPI writing center.