Katina Michael on microchips in humans

In this 15-minute video, Associate Professor Katina Michael of the University of Wollongong (Australia) gives a quick overview of the history of computing, from ENIAC to implantable microchips, then presents three scenarios of likely (or at least possible) uses of microchips in humans.

I very rarely watch anything on YouTube that's over 2-3 minutes. This one is well worth the time. It's informative, gripping, and eye-opening.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Call for papers: Ethics of Social Networks for Special Needs Users

Call for Papers

 Ethics and Information Technology

Special Issue on Ethics of Social Networks for Special Needs Users

Millions of persons all around the world are regular users of social networking sites. Their number is still increasing. Online Social networking practices often raise unforeseen problems with regard to the rights, needs, and interests of the vulnerable, e.g. children, the elderly, and the persons with disabilities. These categories represent what we call “special needs users” and their social networking practices raise specific challenges. Understanding, supporting or helping specials needs users poses problems of e-inclusion, access to social networks, protecting them from harm and exploitation, and accommodating their special needs, supporting their emancipation and political participation, as well as encouraging solidarity with and among these groups.

This special issue invites submissions of original research exploring the interplay between Ethics, on-line social networks, and special needs users. We are particularly interested in contributions that identify ethical issues and their resolution by devising policies and proposing design solutions to the problems identified. Social sciences and Interdisciplinary studies have seen an increased number of papers related to Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn. Most of the literature reflecting on ethical questions associated with these technologies does not go beyond the consideration of individuals’ privacy. In this special edition, we wish to explore a broader range of ethical issues raised by social networks, with a specific focus on the special needs users including children, elderly and persons with disabilities.

Values that come to mind in this context are wellbeing, voice, equality, autonomy and freedom, usability. Researchers are invited to propose papers addressing the key question of this special issue: what are the specific ethical considerations that need to be addressed in the design, deployment and governance of social networks use by special needs persons? Original articles on for example the following themes are welcome:

1. minimum age and protection of minors;
2. effect of a daily use of social networks on kids development including school performance;
3. cyber-bullying, harassment and violence arising from SN usage amongst children;
4. accessibility of elderly or disabled persons to SN;
5. digital divide and e-inclusion; 
6. ethical issues such as: identity, agency and autonomy for special needs users; 
7. generational gaps and solidarities arising from SN usage; 
8. types of solidarities arising from SN usage.

The editors at Ethics and Information Technology are seeking articles for a special issue in these areas. Submissions will be double-blind refereed for relevance to the theme as well as academic rigor and originality. High quality articles not deemed to be sufficiently relevant to the special issue may be considered for publication in a subsequent non-themed issue of Ethics and Information Technology.

Closing date for submissions: 30 September 2012

To submit your paper, please use the online submission system, to be found at www.editorialmanager.com/etin

Please contact the special guest editors for more information: Caroline Rizza and Ângela Guimarães Pereira.

Or the managing editor, Noëmi Manders-Huits

Ethics and Information Technology (ETIN) is the major journal in the field of moral and political reflection on Information Technology. Its aim is to advance the dialogue between moral philosophy and the field of information technology in a broad sense, and to foster and promote reflection and analysis concerning the ethical, social and political questions associated with the adoption, use, and development of IT.

"Obama order sped up wave of cyberattacks against Iran"

An alarming article in the New York Times (Obama Order Sped Up Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran, David E. Sanger, June 1, 2012) claims

From his first months in office, President Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons, according to participants in the program.

The effort was begun in the Bush administration.

The article is

based on interviews over the past 18 months with current and former American, European and Israeli officials involved in the program, as well as a range of outside experts. None would allow their names to be used because the effort remains highly classified, and parts of it continue to this day.

It's a long, detailed, and sobering article. My basic reaction to this news isn't much changed from what I express in an earlier post.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Facebook is your friend. Or not.

About a month ago, the New York Times told us "Facebook Offers More Disclosure to Users" (Kevin J. O'Brien, April 12, 2012). Facebook, eager to "address concerns about the personal information it collects on its users ... would provide any user with more about the data it tracks and stores." Facebook did this before, in 2010, by giving users "a copy of their photos, posts, messages, list of friends and chat conversations."

The new version goes beyond that: it

includes previous user names, friend requests and the Internet protocol addresses of the computers that users have logged in from. More categories of information will be made available in the future, Facebook said.

So Facebook is going to let us get a better idea of how much and what kind of data it collects from us. That's mighty big of them.

But, you know, after Facebook's initial public offering (IPO) today, Facebook will have stock holders to keep happy. Which means that Facebook will have to make more money, and then still more money, and then much more money. How will they do it?

As Fred Cate, my colleague at Indiana University, puts it:

When Facebook investors and founders rake in billions of dollars on Friday, they are making that money by selling little bits of each of us.... What Facebook is selling is us. [IU law professor: Facebook IPO will 'sell little bits of each of us', May 16, 2012]

Cate, Distinguished Professor, and C. Ben Dutton Professor of Law, and Director of IU's Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research, knows what he's talking about.

Shouldn't Facebook users at least get a cut of this action?

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director