In a move sure to surprise lots of you, I’ve already given some thought to topics for my CS Ethics term paper. The term paper topics are due on Friday, and I’ve already got four potential candidates. I’ve found that thinking about classes while I’m in other classes is very handy.
Nevertheless, here are the things I’m considering writing about. They’re subject, and bound, to change:
- Copyright and Software Licensing – the two thoughts I’ve had here are fairly different, but both fall under the copyright wing of IP.
The first option, and probably a very commonly desired one in the class, would be a discussion of digital media copyright and distribution. While I’ve done a lot of writing on this here, I don’t know that it’d be very interesting. I may have too many opinions on this already to really learn or say anything profound.
The second option would be a look at Open Source vs. Closed Source licensing. This has huge societal implications but only limited moral ones. There probably aren’t a lot of fair surveys or stats out on this topic, either. - Terrorism and the Internet – I’m not sure I could get 2,000 words out of this topic, but it may be one of the more ethics-related issues. It’s fairly common knowledge that the internet is widely used to coordinate terrorist action, so shouldn’t we have some ways of keeping tabs? In addition to web and email issues, things like steganography and crpytography come into play too.
- Trading Away Privacy for Convenience – We do this all the time. Look at the OnStar system. These people can find out where you are at any time. They can listen to private conversations you have in the car. But people will allow this because of the additional safety and convenience it provides. I’m sure this is one of many examples, but I’m not quite sure what my angle would be.
- Patenting Software Processes – this is a fairly narrow topic, but it’s happening more and more lately and I’m not sure quite how I feel about it. Software process patents are very vague and broad — if this style of patent were available for everything, you wouldn’t see very much competition in the market and we all know that’s bad.
Some of you couldn’t care less about that stuff, but I’ll flesh them out a little more later as I think more about them (done). Comments and questions welcome.
The trick is going to be finding your particular niche in any of those topics because between the four of them you could engage an entire class. (Which probably isn’t too far from what’s going to happen.)
Here’s an interesting thought that I don’t know if you’ve considered. President Bush just said he wants a computer based id system for health records but doesn’t want a strong government influence in health care. My GOD man. Who’s gonna have the info.
Oh, did he not mention that part? I get to keep it on a server in my bedroom. Duh. Who better to keep your medical records than ME.
How about the ethics involved in maintaining an unoffical website that offers alternative viewpoints to a non-profit organization, and the rights each party has in dealing with this website. Not that this is something you have been involved with before or anything