COMS W3995: Lectures

The lectures and readings listed here are subject to change, including in response to current events (i.e., major new security holes).

Jan 19: Introduction

Text, Chapter 1
Jan 21: Google versus China: Ethnical Issues

Google's announcement
Brian Krebs' summary
Wired Threat Level on the attacks
Vast Spy System Loots Computers in 103 Countries, New York Times, March 28, 2009
The snooping dragon: social-malware surveillance of the Tibetan movement, Shishir Nagaraja and Ross Anderson, Technical Report 746, University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, March 2009.
Jan 26: Ethics I

Text, chapter 9
Paul Berg, David Baltimore, Sydney Brenner, Richard O. Roblin, and Maxine F. Singer, Summary Statement of the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA Molecules PNAS 72:6, June 1975.
David L. Parnas, "Software aspects of strategic defense systems", Comm. ACM 28:12, December 1985.
Philip M. Boffey, Software Seen as Obstacle in Developing 'Star Wars', New York Times, September 16, 1986.
U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee", Center for Disease Control.
Institutional Review Board Guidebook, Introduction, Office of Human Subjects Research, Department of Health and Human Services.
Jan 28: Ethics II

ACM Code of Ethis
ACM Software Engineering Code of Ethics
IEEE Code of Ethics
SAGE/LOPSA/Usenix System Administrators' Code of Ethics
Feb 02: What is Privacy?

The Transparent Society, David Brin, Wired Magazine 4:12, Dec. 1996.
Cyberspace Privacy: A Primer and Proposal, Jerry Kang, Human Rights Magazine 26:1, Winter 1999.
The Right to Privacy, Samuel Warren and Louis D. Brandeis, 4 Harvard Law Review 193 (1890)
The Perfect Scan
Dr. Fun
What's in the driver's license bar code?
Textbook, chapter 2
Feb 04: Wiretapping and Eavesdropping

Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967). Read all five opinions.
Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979).
Wiretapping the Net", Steven M. Bellovin, The Bridge, 20(2):21-26, Summer 2000.
Feb 09: Wiretapping II

The Athens Affair, Vassilis Prevelakis and Diomidis Spinellis, IEEE Spectrum, July 2007.
Security Implications of Applying the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act to Voice over IP, Steven Bellovin, Matt Blaze, Ernest Brickell, Clinton Brooks, Vinton Cerf, Whitfield Diffie, Susan Landau, Jon Peterson, and John Treichler, June 2006.
Feb 11: Privacy: Legal Issues

Ordering Pizza, ACLU. (Note: blatant propaganda piece...)
FBI wants records kept of Web sites visited, Declan McCullagh, CNET News, Feb 5, 2010.
Obama's Nominee for T.S.A. Withdraws, New York Times, Jan 20, 2010.
Identifying John Doe: It might be easier than you think , blog posting, Feb 8, 2010.
What Third Parties Know About John Doe, blog posting, Feb 9, 2010.
The Traceability of an Anonymous Online Comment, blog posting, Feb 10, 2010.
Google Buzz: Privacy nightmare, CNET blog posting, Feb 10, 2010
Feb 16: Freedom of Speech

Text, chapter 3
ACLU v. Reno, 929 F. Supp. 824 (1996)
EFF article on Sapient v. Geller
EFF article on Online Policy Group v. Diebold
Rulings Leave Online Student Speech Rights Unresolved, Wired Threat Level blog, Feb. 4, 2010.
Feb 18: Free Speech: Anonymity

McIntyre v. Ohio Election Commission, 514 U.S. 334 (1995)
TALLEY v. CALIFORNIA, 362 U.S. 60 (1960)
Tor: Overview
Feb 23: Free Speech: Accountability

Exploiting Linkages for Good , blog posting, Dec 31, 2007.
Cyber Civil Rights, Danielle Citron, 89 Boston University Law Review 61 (2009). (Related article that isn't required reading: Law's Expressive Value in Combating Cyber Gender Harassment, Danielle Citron, 108 Michigan Law Review 373 (2009).)
Anonymity and traceability in cyberspace, Richard Clayton, PhD dissertation, University of Cambridge, November 2005, technical report UCAM-CL-TR-653 — read Chapter 3.
Feb 25: Free Speech: Crossing Borders

Britain, Long a Libel Mecca, Reviews Laws, Sarah Lyall, New York Times, 10 December 2009.
Threat to Web Freedom Seen in Italian Google Case, Rachel Donadio, New York Times, 24 Febuary 2010.
Pretrial Publicity
Dow Jones & Company Inc. v Gutnick [2002], HCA 56 (10 December 2002). (skim)
Mar 02: Social Networks
Mar 04: Online Behavior

Hackers Assault Epilepsy Patients via Computer, Wired Magazine, 28 March 2008.
Judge Acquits Lori Drew in Cyberbullying Case, Overrules Jury, Wired Magazine, 2 July 2009.
Facebook Users Keep it Real in Online Profiles, Science News, 26 February 2010
Hey, You're Breaking Up on Me!, Washington Post, 13 February 2007.
The Boundaries of a Breakup, New York Times, 20 November 2009.
Mar 09: Voluntary Disclosures

Israeli Raid Canceled After Facebook Leak, Robert Mackey, New York Times Lede Blog, 3 March 2010.
Project 'Gaydar', Carolyn Y. Johnson, Boston Globe, 20 September 2009.
I Am Here: One Man's Experiment With the Location-Aware Lifestyle, Mathew Honan, Wired Magazine, 19 January 2009.
FTC Warns of Data Breaches from P2P File Sharing, Brian Prince, eWeek, 23 February 2010.
S. 3027, P2P Cyber Protection and Informed User Act, 111th Congress.
Facebook tosses graph privacy into the bin, Joseph Bonneau, Light Blue Touchpaper blog, 11 December 2009.
What Does Facebook's Privacy Transition Mean For You?, ACLU.
Mar 11: Privacy in Online Social Networks: An Oxymoron? (Guest lecturer Balachander Krishnamurthy of AT&T Labs Research)
Mar 23: Intellectual Property: Trademarks

Filching a Good Name for Internet Use?, New York Times, 21 March 2010
Billions Registered, Joshua Quittner, Wired Magazine 2:10, October 1994.
Mar 25: Copyright

Textbook, chapter 4
NFL/DMCA, Wendy Seltzer's blog
Death by DMCA, Fred von Lohmann and Wendy Seltzer, IEEE Spectrum, June 2006
Frequently Asked Questions about Copyright (skim)
Mar 30: Copyrights; Patents

Math of Publishing Meets the E-Book, New York Times, Feb 28, 2010.
Entertainment Industry Asks White House for Vast New Internet Monitoring, Filtering, and Takedown Powers, Lauren Weinstein's blog, 25 March 2010.
Method of exercising a cat, Kevin T. Amiss and Martin H. Abbott, U.S. patent 5,443,036, issued Aug 22, 1995.
Business method protecting jokes, Timothy Wace Roberts, U.S. patent application 10/569,506, filed Aug 24, 2004. (skim).
What is a Patent?, up to but not including the section titled "The United States Patent And Trademark Office"
For Texas Instruments, Calculator Hackers Don't Add Up, D. Kushner, IEEE Spectrum 46:12, December 2009.
Unintended Consequences: Twelve Years under the DMCA, Electronic Frontier Foundation, March 2010. (optional)
Apr 01: "The Free Software Movement and the GPL", Guest lecturer Prof. Eben Moglen (CU Law School), former general counsel of the Free Software Foundation. (no slides)

The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Eric S. Raymond.
Apr 06: Risks of Computers

Textbook, chapter 8
An Experimental Evaluation of the Assumption of Independence in Multi-Version Programming, John Knight and Nancy Leveson, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering SE-12:1, January 1986, pp. 96-109.
Analysis of faults in an N-version software experiment, S.S. Brilliant, J.C. Knight, and N.G. Leveson, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 16:2, February 1990. (optional)
The Bug Heard 'Round the World, Jack Garman, ACM Software Engineering Notes, October, 1981, pp. 3-10.
Vulnerabilities of network control protocols: an example, Eric C. Rosen, ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review 11:3, July 1981.
Who Needs Hackers?, John Schwartz, New York Times, September 12, 2007.
Technical background on AT&T's network slowdown, January 15, 1990
Prius software problems? Is the Prius stopping or stalling on the Highway?, October 13, 2005.
Going Ballistic! A hacker tourist explores the deep recesses of fabled Air Force stronghold Cheyenne Mountain, where the Cold War never stops., Phil Patton, Wired magazine 7:11, November 1999.
20 Mishaps That Might Have Started Accidental Nuclear War, Alan F. Phillips. See #18 and #19.
'I Had A Funny Feeling in My Gut', David Hoffman, Washington Post Foreign Service, February 10, 1999.
History's Worst Software Bugs, Simson Garfinkel, Wired magazine, November 2005.
50 Plus Blue Screen of Death Displays in Public, Hiroshi, 14 June 2009.
An ACM Digital Library error, which I got while working on this lecture...
Apr 08: Risks: Security

Hacking the Hill, Shane Harris, National Journal Magazine, Dec. 20, 2008.
Researchers Trace Data Theft to Intruders in China, John Markoff and David Barboza, New York Times, April 5, 2010.
Jan. 28, 2001: Hey, Don’t Tampa With My Privacy, Ryan Singel, Wired Magazine, This Day In Tech: Events That Shaped the Wired World, Jan 28, 2010.
Police secretly snapping up to 14m drivers a day, Times Online, April 4, 2010.
Apr 13: Risks: Voting Machines (Hugh Thompson, guest lecturer)

Analysis of an Electronic Voting System, Tadayoshi Kohno, Adam Stubblefield, Aviel D. Rubin, and Dan S. Wallach, Proc. IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (May, 2004).
Project EVEREST Evaluation and Validation of Election Related Equipment, Standards and Testing, December 2007 (optional).
Top-to-Bottom Review (optional)
Hacking Democracy, HBO film (optional)
Apr 15: Risks: What do we Do?

Anatomy of an IT disaster: How the FBI blew it, InfoWorld, 21 March 2005
Guest View: It's Not Too Late to Learn, James Shore, Software Development Times on the Web, 15 August 2005.
The FBI’s Trilogy Information Technology Modernization Program — Summary, Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Academies, May 2004.
IRS trudges on with aging computers, CNET News, 12 April 2007.
Apr 20: Employment

Textbook, chapter 6
Will Startups Get Squeezed by a Tech Hiring Binge?, New York Times, 16 April 2010
Debunking the Myths of the Telecommute, New York Times, 16 April 2010
Apr 22: Computers and the Media (John Schwartz, guest lecturer)
Apr 27: Gender Issues

Barriers to the Advancement of Technical Women: A Review of the Literature, Caroline Simard, Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, 2007.
Women in IT: The Facts, by NCWIT, Catherine Ashcraft and Sarah Blithe, National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), 2009.
Gender: Integrated Report of Findings, Dawn Nafus, James Leach, and Bernhard Krieger, FLOSSPOLS Project, 2006.
Out of the Loop in Silicon Valley, Claire Cain Miller, New York Times, 18 April 2010.
Apr 29: Semester wrap-up (no slides)

COMS W3995 — Lectures (Spring '10)