CS 477, Public Policy, Legal, and Ethical Issues in Computing, Privacy, and Security

Spring Semester 2017

History will record what we, here in the early decades of the information age, did to foster freedom, liberty, and democracy. Did we build information technologies that protected people's freedoms even during times when society tried to subvert them? Or did we build technologies that could easily be modified to watch and control?

Bruce Schneier, Crypto-Gram Blog, July 15, 2007

I think that I underestimated the degree to which, in this new information age, it is possible for misinformation, for cyberhacking and so forth, to have an impact on our open societies, our open systems, to insinuate themselves into our democratic practices in ways that I think are accelerating.

President Obama, January 8, 2017, appearing on This Week

Team taught:

Prof. Richard Warner, Chicago-Kent/IIT School of Law.
Prof. Robert Sloan, UIC Computer Science Department.

Location

Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:00-3:15
Tuesdays (from Jan. 17 onward): IIT Chicago-Kent Law School, 565 W. Adams St., Room 520.
Thursdays UIC Burnham Hall 317

(Burnham Hall is a little southwest of the center of the big block bounded by Harrison, Taylor St., Halsted, and Morgan)

---

We will use a use a Piazza site to post certain reading materials and as a place for on-line discussion.

For UIC students, a Blackboard site will be used only to record grades and maybe as a place for electronic submissions.

Syllabus

Main Syllabus for January 17 onward

• syllabus_computer_and_network_privacy_and_security_Feb_26_2017.pdf Late February version. (This syllabus will continue to be updated, but we will only be diligent about keeping it up to date on the class Piazza website.)

Syllabus for UIC students only for Week of January 10-13, 2017

This week only we will not meet jointly with IIT Chicago-Kent Law school students in the course. Both Tuesday and Thursday meetings will be in LC A4 (UIC), 2:00 to 3:15.

Initial Content: A crash course in American law:

• Source of US law: 50 states and federal law
• Constitution vs. statute vs. regulations
• The role of appellate courts in making law
• The role of agencies
• Criminal law, tort law, and contract law

Initial Week Reading for UIC students only, complete before the first meeting if possible, certainly right after:

Orin S. Kerr, How to Read a Legal Opinion

Homework for UIC students, out Tuesday, Jan. 10, due start of class, Thursday, Jan. 12

is posted to the class Piazza site