Societal and Ethical Structure of Computing

• Legal Systems
  • Legal frameworks
    • Legislation
      • Laws by which we live
• Impact of technological change
  • Design impacts
• Human equality
  • Diversity issues

• • Cultural issues
  • Other issues

• Ethical monitoring

• Professional Ethics
• Professional responsibility
  • Professional risk
    • Liability
    • Malpractice
  • Maintaining expectations
    • Fitness for purpose
    • Timelyness
    • Secureness
    • Clean code delivery
    • Functional code delivery
  • Professional status
    • Workplace issues
  • User behavior
    • User responsibilities
    • User rights
• Intellectual property
  • Software piracy
    • Copyright
    • Patent
    • Trademarks
• Contracts
  • Software Licenses

• Civil liberties
  • Censorship
  • Rights of expression
  • Other
• Privacy
  • Data protection
    • Personal data repositories
      • Medical databases
      • Student records databases
      • Other systems storing personal data
  • Other privacy issues
• Ethics
  • Ethical frameworks
    • Codes of Ethics
    • Codes of conduct
    • Codes of practice
    • Professional credentialing
  • Ethical theories
  • Ethical analysis methods
  • Morality

• • • Acts of Conscience

• Community values
• Commercial practices
  • • Business models
      • Open Source philosophy
      • Proprietary
    • Restrictive practices
      • Monopoly
      • Oligopoly
      • Other restrictive practices
• Ethical analysis
  • Evaluating ethical arguments
  • Making ethical arguments
  • Political controls
    • Internet access
    • Internet control
    • Other controls

Social and Ethical Issues

• • Community values
  • Laws by which we live

• • Ethical dissent
  • Whistle-blowing

• Risks and liabilities of computer-based systems (THESE CONCEPTS ARE UNDER OTHER TABS--DO NOT BELONG HERE)

• • Forms of intellectual property
    • Copyrights
    • Patents
    • Trade secrets
  • Means for protecting and penalties for violating forms of intellectual property

• • Piracy

• • Software sales and licensing
  • Software agency

• • Those about whom information is maintained

• • Examples of computer crime

Social and Ethical Issues

• History of computing
  • The world before the electronic digital computer
  • History of computer hardware, software, networking
  • Pioneers of computing
  • Telecommunications
  • IT profession
  • IT education
  • History of ethics
  • Social History of Computing Impacts
  • Development of user interaction
  • Social, legal, historical, and professional issues and concerns
• Social context of computing
  • Social implications of computing
  • Social implications of networked communication
  • Growth of, control of, and access to the Internet
  • Gender-related issues
  • International issues
  • Identity theft
• Methods and tools of analysis
  • Making and evaluating ethical arguments
  • Identifying and evaluating ethical choices
  • Understanding the social context of design
  • Identifying assumptions and values
• Professional and ethical responsibilities
  • Community values and the laws by which we live
  • The nature of professionalism
  • Various forms of professional credentialing and the advantages and disadvantages
  • The role of the professional in public policy
  • Maintaining awareness of consequences
  • Ethical dissent and whistle-blowing
  • Codes of ethics, conduct, and practice (IEEE, ACM, SE, AITP, and so forth)
• Risks and liabilities of computer-based systems
  • Authentication
  • Encryption; Certificates, Public Key
  • Capability User Authorization
  • Audit Logs
  • Access Logs
  • Backup
  • Viruses, Worms
  • Transaction Management, Rollback
  • Intrusion Detection
  • Privacy Protection
  • Security Standards Organizations
  • Security Assurance Service Organizations
  • Uses, misuses, and limits of computer technology
  • Historical examples of software risks (such as the Therac-25 case)
  • Implications of software complexity
  • Risk assessment and management
  • Feasibility assessment
  • Risk management principles
  • Contingency planning
• Intellectual property
  • Protection of intellectual property
  • Forms of intellectual property, means for protecting it, and penalties for violating it
  • Foundations of intellectual property
  • Copyrights, patents and trade secrets
  • Software piracy
  • Software patents
  • Transnational issues concerning intellectual property
  • Digital Millenium copyright Act (DMCA)
  • Software sales, licensing, and agency
  • Rulings which protect software
  • International, legal and regulatory
• Privacy and civil liberties
  • Ethical and legal basis for privacy protection
  • Privacy implications of massive database systems
  • Technological strategies for privacy protection
  • Freedom of expression in cyberspace
  • International and intercultural implications
  • Email
  • Employee Monitoring
  • Employee Information
  • Customer Information
  • Those about whom information is maintained
  • Medical Information
• Computer crime
  • History and examples of computer crime
  • "Cracking" ("hacking") and its effects
  • Crime prevention strategies
  • System use policies & monitoring
  • Risks & liabilities of computer-based systems
  • Software Fraud
• Economic issues in computing
  • Monopolies and their economic implications
  • Effect of skilled labor supply and demand on the quality of computing products
  • Pricing strategies in the computing domain
  • Differences in access to computing resources and the possible effects thereof