Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Dr. Andrew Adams is a lecturer in the School of Systems Engineering at the University of Reading. Dr. Rachel McCrindle is a senior lecturer and Head of Ambient & Pervasive Intelligence Research Group in the School of Systems Engineering at the University of Reading.  Both Dr. Adams and Dr. McCrindle teach on the third year undergraduate module "Social, Legal & Ethical Aspects of Computer Science, Information Technology & Electronic Engineering" and have published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals within their subject area. www.wileyeurope.com/college/adams

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Computing technology is constantly evolving and changing, developing and consolidating its position as a vital component of our lives. It no longer plays a minor part in society it is embedded in, and affects, all aspects of life, from education to healthcare to war. Dealing with the implications of this is a major challenge, and one that can impact upon us, both personally and professionally. As a consequence, it is vital that all in the computing industry make wise decisions regarding their conduct.

Using case studies and discussion topics drawn from entertaining real world examples, Pandora s Box examines the background of a wide range of vital contemporary issues, encouraging readers to examine the social, legal and ethical challenges they will face in their own careers.

Written in an engaging style and packed with international examples, this book addresses topics which have come to the forefront of public consciousness in recent years, such as online crime, piracy and peer to peer file sharing. Comprehensive coverage is provided of digital entertainment, censorship and privacy issues, presenting a rich source of context in which to consider ethical matters.

Suitable for students on computer science degree programmes, as well as those taking IT related modules on other courses which consider the impact of technology on 21^st century living, Pandora s Box is an essential read and a unique and timely textbook.

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Pandora's Box

John Wiley & Sons

Chapter One

There are two primary reasons why people become computing professionals: interest and money. The lucky ones get paid large amounts of money to do things that they are interested in. What they are interested in, and what they get paid for, is solving problems by writing computer programs or developing hardware devices. When computers were rare and expensive, they had little impact on most people's lives; where they did have an impact (such as in code making and breaking by governments), it was hidden and indirect. From the 1960s to the present, however, computers have followed consistent patterns of becoming exponentially more powerful and linearly cheaper in most terms: processing power, memory storage capacity, network bandwidth and so on. Because of this, and their general versatility, computers have become nearly ubiquitous in the industrialized world. The average household unwittingly contains in excess of ten 'computers' - everything from simple microprocessors performing a very limited range of functions, such as ensuring that the freezer does not defrost and the toaster does not burst into flames, to an Internet-connected PC which may also receive satellite television signals and control household systems, such as heating and cooling. Even embedded computers are becoming more powerful and the next wave of development is expected to be the wireless interconnection of many of these devices with other pieces of equipment inside and outside the home. This is already happening with the ability to remotely program satellite and cable television recorders over the Internet or via a mobile phone (www.sky.com/portal/site/skycom/remoterecord/).

The combination of dependence on the correct functioning of these devices and the potential for abuse and misuse by both their owners and third parties (governments, criminals, pranksters or commercial interests) creates the biggest risks that industrial societies have ever faced. It is suggested that we are now in the midst of a social revolution every bit as far-reaching as the industrial revolution: the 'information revolution' moving us from the industrial age to the information age. It used to be reasonable for computer geeks to ignore the potential real-world effects of their work and leave such concerns to others. However, the ubiquity of computer technology means that computing professionals must now consider their work in the same light as the chemist and the nuclear physicist in terms of its potential impact on individuals and society. This is not just in the interests of society, but in the interests of computing professionals themselves. From supporting and promoting professional attitudes to taking part in political debate, the abdication of responsibility by computer nerds needs to stop. The alternative is abuse and misuse of power by large corporations and governments.

This is not to say that a professional attitude and attention to the social and legal ramifications of computing development is entirely altruistic. Despite the huge growth in computer usage and Internet access seen in the last 10 years, to the point where a majority of the population in industrialized countries will use a computer and access the Internet at least weekly, computers and the Internet remain a mystery to most of those users. Where such mystery holds sway, there is always the potential for social reactions (economic, legal and individual) to produce adverse effects on the lives of computing professionals. An extreme example of public reaction to advancing technology can be seen in the area of genetic modification. This might seem a long way from the world of the computer geek but consider that genome sequencing would not be possible on the scale currently undertaken without the processing capabilities of large computers. Without large-scale genome sequencing, genetic modification would be almost impossible to target efficiently.

The public reaction to genetically modified foodstuffs in Europe is, in the opinion of most scientists, completely uninformed and so biased against the technology that even developments which would solve known problems with pesticide and fertilizer use with apparently minimal other risks are blocked under the reaction to 'frankenfood'. Closer to home, for most computing professionals, is the constant discussion over the availability of sexual material online. Despite being utterly discredited (Time, 24 July 1995), an incredibly flawed study from over 10 years ago (Time, 3 July 1995) which claimed that 83.5% of Internet traffic consisted of pornography is still being quoted as a legitimate source by news organizations and lobby groups. In particular such 'statistics' are bandied about by those who advocate severe censorship and control of Internet access and computer usage, even to the point of suggesting that encryption which does not have a 'back door' for law enforcement should be banned, or that truly general-purpose computers be replaced by consumer electronic devices that limit access to information.

Most university engineering courses now include some element of study into social, legal and ethical aspects of the subject. Unlike much of the curriculum in engineering, however, this topic is not one in which a method of solving problems is transmitted from teacher to student. The aim of such a course is, or at least in our opinion should be, to provide a starting point for students to question the effects of their and their colleagues' work. In this book, we aim to raise many questions and provide information about the known and predicted effects of new technology on society. Where possible, parallels are drawn to previous technological developments, sometimes going back centuries, sometimes only a few years. Sometimes opinions are offered on the desirability or otherwise of these effects. It should be noted that such opinions are not always actually held by the authors but are presented to stimulate debate and deeper thought. In particular, each chapter includes some individual case studies and discussion topics. These discussion topics may be structured as a question for debate with starting points on each side put forward or may offer a completely one-sided presentation of the benefits or detriments of a particular aspect of new technology. Such one-sided arguments often form the core of lobbying or public relations exercises by powerful groups and the ability to tell the argument from the polemic and to pick apart a biased view is important.

All of the topics covered in this book could have (and most have had) one or more books written on them. We recommend some of the best (in our opinion) at the end of each chapter. Identifying the ideal order to present these topics was a difficult task and it was obvious to us that there are many equally valid orders. We have therefore made each chapter as self-contained as possible. This means that there are as many references forward to later chapters as references backwards to previous ones. It also means that some material is repeated where important background issues overlap. Readers should feel free to study the material presented in any order they feel appropriate, possibly skipping some chapters entirely. However, the order makes sense to us and we feel there is a reasonable logical progression from issue to issue and chapter to chapter which allows the book to be read as a whole in the order presented.

Before delving into each of the topics in detail, in this chapter we cover some of the major themes which will emerge again and again under the various headings.

LESSIG'S FOUR MODALITIES ANALYSIS

In his seminal 1999 book, Professor Lawrence Lessig described a means of considering how technology and human society interact. In various chapters in our book, this 'four modalities' approach to analysis will be used (sometimes formally, by describing the element of each mode, and sometimes more informally). Lessig's concept is that there are four interconnected influences on human behaviour: law, social norms, markets and architecture. In the physical world, architecture means physics and geography but online architecture is simply computer code. Markets are the economic realities and how they influence behaviour. Social norms are the pressures put on us by people we know and law is the expressed and enforced power of the state. Each of these interacts with the others and puts pressure on the individual. Each is also acted on by society as a whole. None are completely fixed or completely understood and the interactions are sometimes subtle and sometimes gross.

PROPHET AND LOSS: FAILING TO FORESEE THE FUTURE

Intelligent, well-educated experts in science and technology have been making far-reaching pronouncements about the future for centuries. Some of the biggest howlers of failed predictions include:

'The abdomen, the chest and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon' - Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon to Queen Victoria, 1873 'This telephone has too many shortcomings to be considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us' - Western Union internal memo, 1876 'Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax' - Lord Kelvin, physicist and inventor, 1899 'The problem with television is that the people must sit and keep their eyes glued on a screen; the average American family hasn't time for it' - New York Times, 1949 'Man will never reach the moon, regardless of all future scientific advances' - Lee De Forest, radio pioneer, 1957 'There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home' - Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of DEC, 1977 '640 kB ought to be enough for anybody' - Bill Gates, 1981 'I predict the Internet will go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse' - Bob Metcalf, 3Com Founder, 1995

The closest to reality any of these came is Bob Metcalf whose prediction of catastrophic failure applied, but only to the 'dot com' investment bubble, not to the technology or the spread of its usage to almost every home and workplace and even to public toilets! So, when considering the future it is often 'better to keep silent and be thought a fool than speak and confirm the opinion'. Which technologies will become widespread and last and which will die as they are born or flash like a nova is difficult to predict. What is becoming ever more certain is that technology will continue to evolve although we may be reaching the limits of society to adapt to new technology quickly enough for it to be economically viable. Already it can be seen that sufficient technology with wide acceptance can become highly entrenched and outlast several generations of possible replacement purely by commercial inertia (consider the humble audio compact disc, now beginning to show its age but remaining a significant medium for purchase of music 20 years after its introduction, and the audio cassette tape still with its niche markets more than 40 years on). Entirely new technologies are not the only force at work. At least as strong is the combination of new technologies with old (see Chapter 2 for more on this), such as telephony over an Internet connection (voice over Internet protocol) or video on demand delivered to third-generation mobile phones.

INFORMATION SYSTEM PARTITION

In what is now regarded as a classic exposition of the influence of technology on society Meyrowitz (1985) in No Sense of Place argues that television produced seismic upheaval in the social order by giving people access to hitherto restricted information systems: children access to the adult information world, women access to the male information world, ethnic minorities access to the majority's information world and the poor access to the information world of the rich. There are those who have regarded this with horror, such as campaigners insisting that all television broadcast be suitable for young children (i.e. no sex, no violence, no swearing, no moral shades of grey, etc.). There are also those who have objected to the broadcasting of the truth about them or their organizations.

The debate about censorship of information available on the Internet is simply an expansion and intensification of this earlier debate, made more complex by the open and many-to-many nature of Internet protocols. Broadcast television is becoming easier to regulate and more regulated in some ways (e.g. subchannel 'ratings' information allows parents to restrict what their children have access to on the family satellite or cable receivers) and yet less regulated and less easy to regulate in others (hundreds of channels, many of them sourced directly from other countries, and much more extreme adult material being broadcast which was before only allowed distribution in the physical form of videocassettes and DVDs). At the same time, more and more material, including full video feeds, is becoming available over the Internet with much less possibility for restriction by either regulators or parents (see Chapter 4 for more details).

Consider the difference in reporting of the First World War (strong censorship, 'patriotic movies', newsreel cinema footage months old) and the Iraq War (reporters embedded with the attacking troops and in a hotel inside the capital), or the famous sequence of BBC reporter John Simpson 'liberating' Kabul ahead of US and UK troops. The failed coup against Mikhail Gorbachev which brought down the Soviet Union followed the standard pattern of previous power shifts in the Kremlin. Unfortunately for the plotters, Gorbachev's reforms had already lost them control of the information system inhabited by the ordinary people of Moscow. During previous coups, the control of information allowed the assumption of power by plotters before anyone who had the possibility to oppose them could rally support. This time, access to the dissemination of information nationally and internationally allowed Boris Yeltsin to rally support for resistance. It is no coincidence that the most physically and politically oppressive regimes in the world also tend to have some of the most restrictive information systems in place. It is often said that 'you don't miss what you've never had' but it is even more true that 'you don't miss what you don't know exists'.

THE LAW IS AN ASS

When first encountering law, it often seems bewildering with its own strange nomenclature and ways of using five words where it appears that one would do. As it is studied, however, it begins to make sense and a scientist will begin to see the logic involved. This is the most dangerous stage because as one studies in more depth one realizes that law is not truly logical, and that to assume it is can produce grave errors in interpretation. Each piece of law, whether it is a statute, a judicial precedent or an international treaty, is developed somewhat in isolation from other elements of the law. While attempts are always made to ensure that laws do not contradict each other, the existing body of law is too large to avoid such problems. Legislation is the result of individual opinions of existing law, the ideal state of society and the pragmatic view of what might work.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Pandora's Boxby Andrew A. Adams Copyright © 2008 by Andrew A. Adams. Excerpted by permission.
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