Computer Ethics Exam 2
First Amendment in its ENTIRETY
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for redress of grievances." First Amendment, U.S. Constitution
Hackers as Security Researchers
"White hat hackers" use their skills to demonstrate system vulnerabilities and improve security
History on Copyright
- 1790 first copyright law passed - 1909 Copyright Act of 1909 defined an unauthorized copy as a form that could be seen and read visually - 1976 and 1980 copyright law revised to include software and databases that exhibit "authorship" (original expression of ideas), included the "Fair Use Doctrine" - 1982 high-volume copying became a felony - 1992 making multiple copies for commercial advantage and private gain became a felony - 1997 No Electronic Theft Act made it a felony to willfully infringe copyright by reproducing or distributing one or more copies of copyrighted work with a total value of more than $1,000 within a six-month period - 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) prohibits making, distributing or using tools to circumvent technological copyright protection systems and included protection from some copyright lawsuits for Web sites where users post material - 2005 Congress made it a felony to record a movie in a movie theater
Supreme Court free-speech principals
- Advocating illegal acts is (usually) legal. - Anonymous speech is protected. - Some restrictions are allowed on advertising. - Libel and direct, specific threats are not protected. - Inciting violence is illegal.
Stuxnet
- An extremely sophisticated worm - Targets a particular type of control system - Beginning in 2008, damaged equipment in a uranium enrichment plant in Iran
Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA)
- Attempted to avoid conflict with First Amendment by focusing on children - Made it a crime to make available to anyone under 18 any obscene or indecent communication -Found to be unconstitutional -The worst material threatening children was already illegal -It was too vague and broad -It did not use the least restrictive means of accomplishing the goal of protecting children
GNU project
- Began with a UNIX-like operating system, a sophisticated text editor, and many compilers and utilities - Now has hundreds of programs freely available and thousands of software packages available as free software (with modifiable source code) - Developed the concept of copyleft - provide alternatives to proprietary software within today's current legal framework
Hacking Phase 3
- Beginning in mid 1990s - The growth of the Web changed hacking; viruses and worms could be spread rapidly - Political hacking (Hacktivism) surfaced - Denial-of-service (DoS) attacks used to shut down Web sites - Large scale theft of personal and financial information
Search Engines
- Caching and displaying small excerpts is fair use - Creating and displaying thumbnail images is fair use - Google negotiated licensing agreements with news services to copy and display headlines, excerpts, and photos. - Trademarked search terms
Digital Rights Management
- Collection of techniques that control uses of intellectual property in digital formats - Includes hardware and software schemes using encryption - The producer of a file has flexibility to specify what a user may do with it - Apple, Microsoft and Sony all use different schemes of DRM
Anti-spam Laws
- Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM Act) - Targets commercial spam - Criticized for not banning all spam, legitimized commercial spam
Ethical arguments about copying
- Copying or distributing a song or computer program does not decrease the use and enjoyment any other person gets from his or her copy. - Copying can decrease the amount of money that the copyright owner earns. - Copying enables users to try out products, benefiting the copyright owner by encouraging sales. - Businesses and organizations should make their own decisions about marketing products, not consumers who want free samples. - Fair use guidelines are useful ethical guidelines. - There are many arguments for and against unauthorized copying.
Obscenity (already illegal)
- Depicts a sexual act against state law - Depicts these acts in a patently offensive manner that appeals to prurient interest as judged by a reasonable person using community standards - Lacks literary, artistic, social, political or scientific value
Challenges of New Technology
- Digital technology and the Internet make copyright infringement easier and cheaper. - New compression technologies make copying large files (e.g. graphics, video and audio files) feasible. - Search engines make finding material easier. - Peer-to-peer technology makes transferring and sharing files easier - Broadband connections make transferring files easier and enable streaming video. - Miniaturization of cameras and other equipment enable audience members to record and transmit events. - Scanners allow us to change the media of a copyrighted work, converting printed text, photos, and artwork to electronic form. - New tools allow us to modify graphics, video and audio files to make derivative works.
Freedom of speech guidelines
- Distinguish speech from action. Advocating illegal acts is (usually) legal. - Laws must not chill expression of legal speech. - Do not reduce adults to reading only what is fit for children. - Solve speech problems by least restrictive means.
Hacking Phase 1
- Early 1960s to 1970s - It was a positive term - A "hacker" was a creative programmer who wrote elegant or clever code - A "hack" was an especially clever piece of code
Responses from the Content Industries (Ideas from the software industries)
- Expiration dates within the software - Dongles (a device that must be plugged into a computer port) - Copy protection that prevents copying - Activation or registration codes - Court orders to shut down Internet bulletin boards and Web sites
Communications Decency Act of 1996
- First major Internet censorship law - Main parts ruled unconstitutional
Fair Use Doctrine
- Four factors considered - Purpose and nature of use - commercial (less likely) or nonprofit purposes - Nature of the copyrighted work - Amount and significance of portion used - Effect of use on potential market or value of the copyright work (will it reduce sales of work?) - No single factor alone determines - Not all factors given equal weight, varies by circumstance
Hacking as Foreign Policy
- Hacking by governments has increased - Pentagon has announced it would consider and treat some cyber attacks as acts of war, and the U.S. might respond with military force.
Hacking Phase 2
- Hacking took on negative connotations - Breaking into computers for which the hacker does not have authorized access - Still primarily individuals - Includes the spreading of computer worms and viruses and 'phone phreaking' - Companies began using hackers to analyze and improve security
Variety of factors contribute to security weaknesses:
- History of the Internet and the Web - Inherent complexity of computer systems - Speed at which new applications develop - Economic and business factors - Human nature
Safe Harbor (response to copyright infringement)
- Industry issues "take down" notices per the DMCA - As long as sites like YouTube and MySpace comply with take down notices they are not in violation - Take down notices may violate fair use, some have been issued against small portions of video being used for educational purposes
Security
- Internet started with open access as a means of sharing information for research. - Attitudes about security were slow to catch up with the risks. - Firewalls are used to monitor and filter out communication from untrusted sites or that fit a profile of suspicious activity. - Security is often playing catch-up to hackers as new vulnerabilities are discovered and exploited.
Cloud storage raises copyright issues.
- Is copying legally purchased files to and from the cloud a fair use? - Will the companies operating the cloud services have any responsibility for unauthorized content their customers store and share? - Since copyright holders do not see what is stored, they do not have the option of sending takedown notices.
The DMCA vs. Fair Use, Freedom of Speech, and Innovation
- Lawsuits have been filed to ban new technologies - U.S. courts have banned technologies such as DeCSS even though it has legitimate uses, while courts in other countries have not. - Protesters published the code as part of creative works (in haiku, songs, short movies, a computer game and art) - U.S. courts eventually allowed publishing of DeCSS, but prohibited manufacturers of DVD players from including it in their products
Evolving Business Models
- Organizations set up to collect and distribute royalty fees (e.g. the Copyright Clearance Center), users don't have to search out individual copyright holders - Sites such as iTunes and the new Napster provide legal means for obtaining inexpensive music and generate revenue for the industry and artists - Revenue sharing allows content-sharing sites to enable the posting of content and share their ad revenues with content owners in compensation
Against software patents
- Patents can stifle innovation, rather than encourage it. - Cost of lawyers to research patents and risk of being sued discourage small companies from attempting to develop and market new innovations. - It is difficult to determine what is truly original and distinguish a patentable innovation from one that is not.
Patent cases
- Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, and ecommerce and Web-viewing - Apple, Android, and tap-touch screens - IBM , Amazon, and electronic catalogues
Books Online
- Project Guttenberg digitizes books in the public domain - Microsoft scanned millions of public domain books in University of California's library - Google has scanned millions of books that are in the public domain and that are not; they display only excerpts from those still copyrighted - Some court rulings favor search engines and information access; some favor content producers
Positive uses of anonymity
- Protect political speech -Protect against retaliation and embarrassment
Shutting down communications in free countries
- Public safety - In the U.S., the Supreme Court would probably declare unconstitutional a law that authorized a government agency to order a private communications service to shut down.
"Look and feel"
- Refers to features such as pull-down menus, windows, icons, and finger movements and specific ways they are used to select or initiate actions. - Reflects major creative effort by programmers.
Harmless hacking
- Responding to nonmalicious or prank hacking uses resources. - Hackers could accidentally do significant damage. - Almost all hacking is a form of trespass.
In favor of software patents
- Reward inventors for their creative work - Encourage inventors to disclose their inventions so others can build upon them - Encourage innovation
Reverse engineering: game machines
- Sega Enterprises Ltd. v. Accolade Inc. (1992) - Atari Games v. Nintendo (1992) - Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. v. Connectix Corporation (2000) - Courts ruled that reverse engineering does not violate copyright if the intention is to make new creative works (video games), not copy the original work (the game systems)
Patent trolls
- Some companies accumulate thousands of technology patents but do not make any products. - They license the patents to others and collect fees.
International Piracy
- Some countries do not recognize or protect intellectual property - Countries that have high piracy rates often do not have a significant software industry - Many countries that have a high amount of piracy are exporting the pirated copies to countries with strict copyright laws - Economic sanctions often penalize legitimate businesses, not those they seek to target
Sony v. Universal City Studios (1984)
- Supreme Court decided that the makers of a device with legitimate uses should not be penalized because some people may use it to infringe on copyright - Supreme Court decided copying movies for later viewing was fair use -Arguments against fair use - People copied the entire work - Movies are creative, not factual - Arguments for fair use - The copy was for private, noncommercial use and generally was not kept after viewing - The movie studios could not demonstrate that they suffered any harm - The studios had received a substantial fee for broadcasting movies on TV, and the fee depends on having a large audience who view for free
U.S copyright Law (Title 17 of U.S. Code) gives copyright holder following exclusive rights:
- To make copies - To produce derivative works, such as translations into other languages or movies based on books - To distribute copies - To perform the work in public (e.g. music, plays) - To display the work in public (e.g. artwork, movies, computer games, video on a Web site)
Hacktivism, or Political Hacking
- Use of hacking to promote a political cause - Disagreement about whether it is a form of civil disobedience and how (whether) it should be punished - Some use the appearance of hacktivism to hide other criminal activities
Free-speech Principles
- Written for offensive and/or controversial speech and ideas - Covers spoken and written words, pictures, art, and other forms of expression of ideas and opinions - Restriction on the power of government, not individuals or private businesses
Business models that dont work
- Zediva, a small startup in 2011, bought DVDs and rented the content (not the physical DVD) to customers legally. Court ordered Zediva to shut down. - Pirate Bay - Megaupload
Negative uses of anonymity
- protects criminal and antisocial activities - aids fraud, harassment, extortion, distribution of child pornography, theft, and copyright infringement - masks illegal surveillance by government agencies
Video Games
-A California law banned sale or rental of violent video games to minors. - In 2011, the Supreme Court of California ruled it violated the First Amendment.
Tools for communication, tools for oppression
-Authoritarian governments have impeded flow of information and opinion throughout history. -The vibrant communication of the Internet threatens governments in countries that lack political and cultural freedom. -Attempts to limit the flow of information on the Internet similar to earlier attempts to place limits on other communications media -Some countries own the Internet backbone within their countries and block specific sites and content at the border - Some countries ban all or certain types of access to the Internet
Filters (alternative to censorship)
-Blocks sites with specific words, phrases or images - Parental control for sex and violence - Updated frequently but may still screen out too much or too little - Not possible to eliminate all errors
Telecommunication Act of 1996
-Changed regulatory structure and removed artificial legal divisions of service areas and restrictions on services that telephone companies can provide. -No provider or user of interactive computer services shall be treated as a publisher of any information provided by another information content provider.
Policies (alternative to censorship)
-Commercial services, online communities, and social networking sites develop policies to protect members. - Video game industry developed rating system that provides an indication for parents about the amount of sex, profanity, and violence in a game.
Anonimity
-Common Sense and Federalist Papers -the condition of being anonymous.
Aiding foreign censors and repressive regimes
-Companies who do business in countries that control Internet access must comply with the local laws -Google argued that some access is better than no access -Chinese government requires modified version of Skype -Yahoo, eBay and others make decisions to comply with foreign laws for business reasons
Which of the following is an exclusive right (subject to some exceptions) granted by copyright law?
-Distribute the work -Copy the work -Create "derivative works"
In the term "Free Software", "free" implies all of the following
-Free to copy -Freedom -Free to modify
Child Pornography
-Includes pictures or videos of actual minors (children under 18) engaged in sexually explicit conduct. -Production is illegal primarily because of abuse of the actual children, not because of the impact of the content on a viewer. -Congress extended the law against child pornography to include "virtual" child pornography. -The Supreme Court ruled the law violated the First Amendment. -The Court accepted a later law providing harsh penalties for certain categories of computer- generated and cartoon-type images.
Spam
-Loosely described as unsolicited bulk email -Mostly commercial advertisement -Angers people because of content and the way it's sent - Spam imposes a cost on recipients - Spam filters do not violate free speech (free speech does not require anyone to listen)
Child Online Protection Act of 1998 (COPA)
-More limited than CDA -Federal crime for commercial Web sites to make available to minors material "harmful to minors" as judged by community standards -Found to be unconstitutional - It was too broad - It would restrict the entire country to the standards of the most conservative community -It would have a chilling effect
Who does the 1st Amendment protect?
-Print media (newspapers, magazines, books) -Broadcast (television, radio) -Common carries (telephones, postal system)
There are four factors to consider in deciding whether a use of copyrighted material is a fair use:
-Purpose and nature of use -The amount and significance of the portion used -The nature of the copyrighted work -The effect of the use on potential market for or value of the copyrighted work
Net Neutrality
-Refers to a variety of proposals for restrictions on how telephone and cable companies interact with their broadband customers and set fees for services. -Argue for equal treatment of all customers -Flexibility and market incentives will benefit customers
Selling surveillance tools
-Repressive governments intercept citizens' communications and filter Internet content. -Companies in Western democracies sell them the sophisticated tools to do so.
Children's Internet Protection Act of 2000 (CIPA)
-Requires schools and libraries that participate in certain federal programs to install filtering software - Upheld in court -Does not violate First Amendment since it does not require the use of filters, impose jail or fines - It sets a condition for receipt of certain federal funds
Sexting
-Sending sexually suggestive or explicit text or photos, usually by cellphone or social media -Can meet the definition of child pornography if subject is under 18
Intellectual Property
-The intangible creative work, not its particular physical form -Value of intelligence and artistic work comes from creativity, ideas, research, skills, labor, nonmaterial efforts and attributes the creator provides -Protected by copyright and patent law
Leaks
-Type of material - Value to society - Risks to society and individuals Examples -WikiLeaks -Climategate Potentially dangerous leaks: Releasing a huge mass of documents -Responsibilities of operators of Web sites for leaks
free software
-an idea advocated and supported by a large, loose-knit group of computer programmers who allow people to copy, use, and modify their software - Free means freedom of use, not necessarily lack of cost - Open source - software distributed or made public in source code (readable and modifiable)
Patents
-protect inventions by giving the inventor a monopoly for a specified time period. -Laws of nature and mathematical formulas cannot be patented. -Obvious inventions or methods cannot be patented.
The legal guidelines for determining whether material is obscene include all of the following
-the material is patently offensive according to contemporary community standards -the material has no serious artistic, literary, social, political, or scientific value -the material depicts particular sexual (or excretory) acts specified by state law
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) 1998
Anticircumvention -Prohibit circumventing technological access controls and copy-prevention systems Safe harbor -Protect Web sites from lawsuits for copyright infringement by users of site
Responses from the Content Industries (Banning, suing and taxing)
Ban or delay technology via lawsuits - CD-recording devices - DVD players - Portable MP3 players Require that new technology include copyright protections Tax digital media to compensate the industry for expected losses
Tools for authorized sharing
Creative Commons: Enables an author to specify permissions
All peer-to-peer technologies were found to be illegal as a result of the Napster case.
False
Copyright law protects processes and inventions, while patent law protects the particular expression of an idea.
False
In its early years, Internet security was a primary design concern.
False
Lawsuits in 1978 delayed the introduction of technology for consumer CD-recording devices for music.
False
File sharing: MGM v. Grokster
Grokster, Gnutella, Morpheus, Kazaa, and others provided peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing services - The companies did not provide a central service or lists of songs - P2P file transfer programs have legitimate uses -Lower Courts ruled that P2P does have legitimate uses -Supreme Court ruled that intellectual property owners could sue the companies for encouraging copyright infringement
Web sites that look attractive to hackers, but are closely monitored so that everything the hacker does at the site is recorded and studied are known as:
Honey pots
Hacking
Intentional, unauthorized access to computer systems
One of the reasons the court ruled against Napster was:
It knowingly encouraged and assisted in the infringement of copyrights
Was Napster responsible for the actions of its users?
Napster's arguments - It was the same as a search engine, which is protected under the DMCA - They did not store any of the MP3 files - Their technology had substantial legitimate uses RIAA's arguments - Companies are required to make an effort to prevent copyright violations and Napster did not take sufficient steps - Napster was not a device or new technology and the RIAA was not seeking to ban the technology Court ruled Napster liable because they had the right and ability to supervise the system, including copyright infringing activities
Sharing music: the Napster case
Napster's arguments for fair use - The Sony decision allowed for entertainment use to be considered fair use - Did not hurt industry sales because users sampled the music on Napster and bought the CD if they liked it RIAA's (Recording Industry Association of America) arguments against fair use - "Personal" meant very limited use, not trading with thousands of strangers - Songs and music are creative works and users were copying whole songs - Claimed Napster severely hurt sales Court ruled sharing music via copied MP3 files violated copyright
What areas is covered by the topics of Free Speech?
Other forms of expression and opinion Spoken and written Words PIctures and Art
Which one of the media areas has the most First Amendment protection?
Why did the Supreme Court find the Communications Decency Act of 1996 unconstitutional?
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously, in American Civil Liberties Union et al. v. Janet Reno, that the censorship provisions of the CDA were unconstitutional. The courts made strong statements about the importance of protecting freedom of expression in general and on the Internet. The court decisions against the CDA established that "the Internet deserves the highest protection from government intrusion."
Which of the following is not a factor specified in U.S. copyright law for determining fair use?
The for-profit or non-profit status of the copyright holder
In 1878, women telephone operators were hired as a result of phone phreakers.
True
Stuxnet was a sophisticated worm, that targeted a particular type of control system.
True
The Digital Millennium copyright Act gives companies ways to threaten fair use, freedom of speech, research, competition, reverse engineering, and innovation.
True
White hat hackers use their skills to demonstrate system vulnerabilities and improve security.
True
Honey pots is defined as which of the following?
Websites that are specifically designed to be attractive to hackers
In the early days of computing (1960's to the early 1970's), a "hacker" was:
a creative programmer who wrote very elegant and clever programs
Denial-of-Service (DOS) is defined as which of the following?
an attack in which hackers overload a target site with requests for information
Which of the following requirements was a key provision of the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA)?
filtering software must be installed on Internet terminals in schools and libraries
Which of the following is not a way for software to be protected against copyright infringement?
make all software free
Pharming is defined as which of the following?
planting false Internet addresses in the tables on a Domain Name Server (DNS) so that when someone types a URL, they are re-directed to a bogus site
Anonymizers allow a user to
send email and surf the Web anonymously
Phishing is defined as which of the following?
sending millions of emails requesting information to use to impersonate someone and steal money or goods
Which of the following limits deceptive commercial email and outlines spammers' responsibilities:
the CAN-SPAM Act
Avoiding censorship:
the global nature of the Net allows restrictions (or barriers) in one country to be circumvented by using networks in other, less restrictive countries.
Creating censorship:
the global nature of the Net makes it easier for one nation to impose restrictive standards on others.
Anonymizing services
used by individuals, businesses, law enforcement agencies, and government intelligence services
