Ethics and the Law on the Electronic Frontier
Lecture Notes
LEC # |
TOPICS |
LECTURE OUTLINES |
1 |
Course Overview and Introduction |
|
Unit A: Regulating the Decentralized Internet |
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2 |
The Internet meets the U.S. Constitution |
(PDF) |
3 |
The Legacy of Reno: The Strengths and Limits of Filtering and User Control |
|
Unit B: Regulating Government Use of Surveillance Technology |
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4 |
Fourth Amendment Foundations and the First Century of Electronic Surveillance |
(PDF) |
5 |
International Issues |
(PDF) |
6 |
Technology-driven Public-private Boundary Shifts |
(PDF) |
7 |
Profiling and Datamining Post-9/11 |
(PDF) |
|
Midterm Exam |
|
Unit C: The Transparency Challenge |
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8 |
Anonymity vs. Transparency |
(PDF) |
9 |
Personal Information on the Web |
(PDF) |
10 |
Transparency in Consumer Protection and Commercial Regulation |
(PDF) |
11 |
Origins of Broadcast Regulation |
(PDF) |
12 |
Semantic Web Public Policy Challenges |
(PDF) |
Exams
This section provides a sample exam that was given to students in the course.
Sample Midterm Exam (PDF)
Projects
This section contains the term paper assignment, along with exemplary term papers by students in the class.
Guidelines and Expectations for Final Papers (PDF)
Exemplary Student Papers
All papers appear courtesy of the students named and are used with permission.
PAPER TOPICS |
AUTHORS |
Fall 2005 |
|
Facebook: Threats to Privacy (PDF - 1.7 MB) |
Harvey Jones and José Hiram Soltren |
Get to Know GoogleTM: Because They Know You |
Stefanie Alki Delichatsios and Temitope Sonuyi |
The Freedom of Information Act: Holding Government Accountable (PDF) |
Daniel Peng |
Policy and Practice in Student Records (PDF) |
Waseem Daher |
MIT Privacy Protection of Job Applicant and Employee Information (PDF) |
Jacqueline Tio |
Fall 2004 |
|
The MIT ID Card System: Analysis and Recommendations (PDF) |
Priya Agrawal, Neha Bhargava, Chaitra Chandrasekhar, Al Dahya, and J. D. Zamfirescu |
Privacy, SmartCards and the MBTA: A Policy Analysis of the MBTA's New Automated Fare Collection System |
Ian Brelinsky, Brian Myhre, Jennifer Novosad, and Chris Suarez |
Sensors in Public Spaces: The Law and Technology of Anonymity |
Shuvo Chatterjee, Mabel Feng, Brian Keegan, Sarah Ma, and Jennifer Wang |
Fall 2003 |
|
Netwatcher: A design of an internet filter based on an adaptive version of naive Bayes |
Jean Almonord and Daniel Yoon |
Updating Copyright Laws to Address Concerns of Google's Cached Page Service (PDF) |
Parul Deora |
Progress Against the Law: Fan Distribution, Copyright, and the Explosive Growth of Japanese Animation (PDF) |
Sean Leonard |
Analysis of Fair Use and Fan Culture on the Internet (PDF) |
Sean Whaley |
Bloggers' Expectations of Privacy and Accountability: An Initial Survey. Published as |
Fernanda B. Viégas |
Fall 2002 |
|
TCPA and Palladium: Are the Benefits of the Hardware Changes Enough to Justify an Upgrade? (PDF) |
Omar Bakr, Hareesh Nair, Aman Narang, and Tony Scelfo |
Underlying Motivations in the Broadcast Flag Debate. A revised version of this paper appears in the August-September 2004 issue of the journal Telecommunications Policy. (PDF) |
Roshan Baliga, Deb Dasgupta, Anna Dreyer, and Allan Friedman |
Spring 2002 |
|
PARANOIA Security Standard for Wireless Networks (PDF) |
Richard Hu, Pius A. Uzamere II, and Fei Xing |
A Proposal for a Ubiquitous Privacy Notice Standard (PDF) |
Roland Burton and Corinna Sherman |
The Personal Internetworked Notary and Guardian (PING): The Policy Implications of a Patient-Controlled Electronic Medical Record (PDF) |
Daniar Hussain, Andrew Werner, and Neil Desai |
Carnival Booth: An Algorithm for Defeating the Computer-Assisted Passenger Screening System (PDF) |
Samidh Chakrabarti and Aaron Strauss |
Digital Balance (PDF) |
Tin Lun (Bruce) Au |
Analysis of Local Boston Television News Story Selection Bias, 1993-2002 (PDF) |
Keith Winstein |