CPSC610: Topics in Computer Science and Law
Time: Wed, 3:30 to 5:20 p.m.
Location: Arthur K. Watson Hall, Room 307
Instructor: Joan Feigenbaum
ULA: Aidan Evans
Assistant: Judi Paige (AKW 507A, Judi.Paige@yale.edu, 203-436-1267)
Course Description
CPSC 610 is a graduate seminar that focuses on socio-technical problems in computing, i.e., problems that cannot be solved through technological progress alone but rather require legal, political, or cultural progress as well. Examples include but are not limited to computer security, intellectual property protection, cyber crime, cyber war, surveillance, and online privacy. The course is addressed to graduate students in Computer Science who are interested in socio-technical issues but whose undergraduate work may not have addressed them; it is designed to bring these students rapidly to the point at which they can do research on socio-technical problems. Students present and discuss papers from the literature in class, do term projects (either papers or software artifacts), and present their projects at the end of the term.
Enrollment limit
In order to ensure that there is enough time for both midterm feedback on project proposals and in-class presentation of the finished projects, enrollment is limited to fifteen. If fewer than fifteen Computer Science graduate students enroll, Yale College undergraduates will be allowed to enroll with permission of the instructor.
Prerequisites
The basics of cryptography and computer security (as covered in CPSC 467), networks (as covered in CPSC 433), and databases (as covered in CPSC 437), or permission of the instructor.
Reading list for the Fall 2021 offering of CPSC 610
- Alan Z. Rozenshtein, Surveillance Intermediaries
- Stefan Savage, Lawful Device Access without Mass Surveillance Risk: A Technical Design Discussion
- Amy Davidson Sorkin, The Dangerous All Writs Act Precedent in the Apple Encryption Case
- Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes, Apple is Selling You a Phone, Not Civil Liberties
- Mayank Varia, A Roadmap for Exceptional Access Research
- Hany Farid, Reining in Online Abuses
- Alan Z. Rozenshtein, The Revised EARN IT Act Proposes a Better Process for Encryption Policy
- Riana Pfefferkorn, The EARN IT Act is a Disaster Amid the Covid Crisis
- Matthew Green, Can end-to-end encrypted systems detect child sexual abuse imagery?
- Apple, CSAM Detection: Technical Summary
- Brian Barrett and Lily Hay Newman, Apple Backs Down on Its Controversial Photo-Scanning Plans
- Kate Klonick, The New Governors: The People, Rules, and Processes Governing Online Speech. Sections I, III and IV are required reading; the rest of the article is optional.
- Robert Gorwa, Reuben Binns, and Christian Katzenbach, Algorithmic content moderation: Technical and political challenges in the automation of platform governance
- Kate Klonick, Inside the Making of Facebook's Supreme Court
- Evelyn Douek, Facebook's ``Oversight Board'': Mover Fast with Stable Infrastructure and Humility
- Reddit AutoModerator . Homepage and ``Writing Basic Rules'' are required reading; the rest of the AutoModerator site is optional.
- Shagun Jhaver, Iris Birman, Eric Gilbert, and Amy Bruckman, Human-Machine Collaboration for Content Regulation: The Case of Reddit Automoderator
- Eshwar Chandrasekharan, Chaitrali Gandhi, Matthew Wortley Mustelier, and Eric Gilbert. Crossmod: A Cross-Community Learning-based System to Assist Reddit Moderators. Sections 1, 3, 4 and 5 are required; all other sections are optional.
- Amy Zhang, Grant Hugh, and Michael Bernstein, PolicyKit: Building Governance in Online Communities
- Nathan Schneider, Primavera De Filippi, Seth Frey, Joshua Tan, and Amy Zhang, Modular Politics: Toward a Governance Layer for Online Communities
- Omri Rachum-Twaig, Whose Robot Is It Anyway?: Liability for AI-Based Robots
- Bryan Casey, Robot Ipsa Loquitur
- Anat Lior, AI Entities as AI Agents: Artificial Intelligence Liability and the AI Respondeat Superior Analogy
Final papers
Nine of the students in CPSC 610 this semester agreed to have their final papers posted on this site.
- Lia Eggleston, Transparency in Content Moderation: Overview and the Case of "Shadowbans"
- Michelle Fang, DAO Governance: Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, Quadratic Voting, and Liberalism
- Frances Kigawa, Content Moderation for Nombox
- Rabhya Mehrotra, An Alternative Approach to Content Moderation: Expanding News Feeds Through Randomization
- Lina Montes, Copyright Enforcement and Fair Use in the Digital World
- Kelly Rudder, An Analysis of NotPetya and EternalBlue: Past Damage and Potential for Future Harm
- Greg Schwartz, Evaluating Source Code Disclosure in the Criminal Justice System
- Alden Tan, Regulating Falsehoods: Lessons from Singapore's Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act
- Thomas Woodside, The Unbearable Lightness of Artificial Intelligence: The First Amendment's Uncertain Application to AI