A Gift of Fire
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A Gift of Fire Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues for Computing Technology
fourth edition
Sara Baase San Diego State University
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Credits and acknowledgements. Excerpt from Mike Godwin speech: at Carnegie Mellon University, November 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Mike Godwin. Reprinted with permission. Excerpt from Jerrold H. Zar’s “Candidate for a Pullet Surprise”: from JOURNAL OF IRREPRODUCIBLE RESULTS, 39, no. 1 (Jan/Feb 1994). Copyright © 1994 Norman Sperling Publishing. Reprinted with permission. Excerpt from “Social and Legal Issues”: From INVITATION TO COMPUTER SCIENCE, 1E by Schneider/Gertsing. Copyright © 1995 South-Western, a part of Cengage Learning, Inc. Reproduced by permission. www.cengage.com/permissions. Appendix A.1: The Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice. THE SOFTWARE ENGINEERING CODE OF ETHICS AND PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE © 1999 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. and the Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. Reprinted by permission. Appendix A.2: The ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. ACM CODE OF ETHICS AND PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT. Copyright © 1999 by the Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. and the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Reprinted by permission. Adi Kamdar Excerpt: Adi Kamdar, “EFF Denounces Flawed E-Verify Proposal That Would Trample on Worker Privacy,” July 1, 2011, www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/07/eff-denounces-flawede-verify-proposal, viewed July 31, 2011. Reprinted under the terms of the Creative Commons Attributions License. Calvin and Hobbes “today at school . . . ” cartoon © 1993 Watterson. Reprinted with permission of UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE. All rights reserved. Calvin and Hobbes “what’s all the fuss about computers . . . ” cartoon © 1995 Watterson. Dist. By UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved. “Opus” cartoon used with the permission of Berkeley Breathed and the Cartoonist Group. All rights reserved.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Baase, Sara. A gift of fire : social, legal, and ethical issues for computing technology / Sara Baase. — 4th ed.
p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-13-249267-6 1. Computers—Social aspects. 2. Computers—Moral and ethical aspects. 3. Internet—Social aspects.
4. Internet—Moral and ethical aspects. I. Title. QA76.9.C66B3 2013 303.48′34—dc23 2012020988
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN 10: 0-13-249267-9 ISBN 13: 978-0-13-249267-6
www.cengage.com/permissions
www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/07/eff-denounces-flawede-verify-proposal
To Keith, always
And to Michelle Nygord Matson (1959–2012)
For her love of life, learning, and adventure For her laughter, wisdom, and determination For her friendship
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Contents
Preface xiii
Prologue 1
1 UNWRAPPING THE GIFT 3
1.1 The Pace of Change 4 1.2 Change and Unexpected Developments 6
1.2.1 Connections: Cellphones, Social Networking, and More 7 1.2.2 E-commerce and Free Stuff 15 1.2.3 Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Sensors, and Motion 17 1.2.4 Tools for Disabled People 21
1.3 Themes 23 1.4 Ethics 26
1.4.1 What Is Ethics, Anyway? 26 1.4.2 A Variety of Ethical Views 28 1.4.3 Some Important Distinctions 36 Exercises 40
2 PRIVACY 47
2.1 Privacy Risks and Principles 48 2.1.1 What Is Privacy? 48 2.1.2 New Technology, New Risks 50 2.1.3 Terminology and Principles for Managing Personal Data 56
2.2 The Fourth Amendment, Expectation of Privacy, and Surveillance Technologies 60 2.2.1 The Fourth Amendment 61 2.2.2 New Technologies, Supreme Court Decisions, and Expectation of
