CS378H Public Policy and the Digitally Native Technologist

Honors course. Meets in GDC 2.410 three hours per week: Monday 1-2pm and Wednesday 1-3pm

Instructor: Prof. William Press
Email: wpress@cs.utexas.edu
Office: POB 3.258
Office hours: Monday, 2-3pm (immediately after class), or arrange time by email

TAs: Urmilla Banerjee and John Hawkins

Prerequisites: Upper-division standing in Turing Scholars program or, with consent of instructor, in Dean's Scholars or Polymathic Scholars programs.

Spring, 2016.

Course Contact List Form

Links to Google Groups or Docs

Our Google Group (for setting edit permissions if you post Google Docs): cs378h-2016@googlegroups.com

Upcoming Schedule

(Archived schedule events here.)

Wednesday, March 2. Surprise Quiz on self-driving cars! ("Fact of" is not the surprise, but nature of quiz is.) If time, discuss next unit.
Monday, March 7. Discuss quiz. Groups finalize self-driving car report into Wiki format. Brainstorm on next unit.
Wednesday, March 9. Final report due for Self-Driving Cars. Select next topic from list below
SPRING BREAK
Monday, March 21. Before class: 1) Add at least 5 documents or links on the topic of CS education to its Wiki page and 2) write 500 words on subtopic of choice and submit Google doc to topic 'shoebox'.
Wednesday, March 23. Draft of reports from each group due
Monday, March 28. Senate panel on CS education
Wednesday, March 30. Before class: Final cleanup of CS education reports, be prepared to pick new topic next class.
Monday, April 4. Before class teams will have prepared panel-given lectures on their Cyberattack chapters that embed all Jeopardy questions to be submitted. In class, give lectures.
Tuesday, April 5, 6:00pm. Deadline for every individual to submit Jeopardy questions based on your team's lecture. Submit questions here.
Wednesday, April 6. Jeopardy!

Course Description

Are you a digital native? How, and in what roles, can you influence public policy, now and in the future? This course will consider actual case studies as a way to provide practical experience in how policy is made, how to advise a President, a legislator, a judge, a CEO. Exercises may involve coding/scripting (for data collection, fusion, analysis), writing (communication of results to policy makers), and oral presentation.

Individually and in small teams, each student will participate in 4 or 5 topical units in the course of the semester. Each unit will have a fast research phase (starting with an introduction of the topic by the instructor), a writing component, an oral presentation component, and an instructor and peer assessment component. The purpose of each unit is to make a well-supported case to a (simulated) policy maker for a specific set of actions. Teamwork and appropriate division of effort, and fusion of results, will be required, but each student will him/herself do a significant amount of individual writing in each topical unit. Written exercises may include: a draft Presidential decision memo, a draft section of a Senate bill, a piece of an amicus brief to the Supreme Court.

For each topical unit, we will ask questions like these:

• What is the issue? What are the questions that we should be asking about the issue?
• What is known about the answers? Is there data? Could we get data? Where there is controversy, what are the different points of view?
• What economic interests are at stake? What societal interests (other than economic) are at stake?
• What are the policy levers, i.e., what can be changed? Who controls those levers?
• What do we actually want to happen? Who should do what?
• Can we produce a convincing case to motivate the relevant policy-makers to act?

Counts for writing flag.

Topical Units (2016)

Completed Topics

• Final report: User Encryption on Personal Devices: Perspectives
  • Resources used, drafts, etc.
• Final report: Self-Driving Cars: Public Policy Implications
  • Resources used, drafts, etc.
• Final report: Mathematics and Computer Literacy for the Public
  • Resources used, drafts, etc.

Current Topic

• Cyber-war, cyber-espionage, and economic intelligence

Possible Next Topic

• Bitcoin, TOR, and Anonymity
• Digital IP rights: Creators, Consumers, Channels

Other Possibilities

• Laser regulation? (In light of recent incidents where lasers are being shown at passing airplanes)
• More thorough background checks for lightsaber owners
• Airspace and the regulation of commercial drones
• Tesla and the Car Dealership Lobby
• The Healthcare.gov platform rollout fiasco
• High-tech public service: Who and How?
• Digital Voting
• The future "urban platform"
• How does Internet connectivity affect war? Warfighters? The public's perception of war?
• Who should own the Internet? (ICANN? IANA? ITU? countries?)
• International technology regulations (e.g. EU vs Google)
• Jurisdiction for Borderless Cyberspace (e.g., search warrants)
• The Forensic Science of Digital Traces
• Cybersecurity in commerce (e.g., Sony, Target, Home Depot)
• Security of mobile-payment systems and other non-traditional payment systems
• Cyber-insurance: Should insurance companies offer insurance for people who get PWND based on their risk? What effect would this have on technology vendors?
• Edward Snowden: How much good? How much harm?
• Hacktivism (anonymous and others)
• Regulation of the Internet of Things?
• Digital Millennium Copyright Act: Changes needed?
• The Economics of Digital Rights Management
• Net Neutrality and Internet.org
• Universal internet access, Facebook's ''Free Basics'', municipal fiber networks

An interesting source of related topics is the Electronic Frontier Foundation's list of legal cases.

Student-Written Course Output

Public Policy on Selected Technology Issues: A Student-Produced Wiki (2016)

Above is the link to the main output of the course. All students are encouraged to edit all pages. Your overall contribution to this Wiki will be the main part of your course grade. Do not be shy about improving other students' contributions, under Wikipedia-style rules of courtesy (e.g., use the Discussion pages to explain/discuss/debate changes that might be controversial).

Completed units:

Individual Student Logs and Workspaces

Above is link to space for each student to develop draft contributions. You should not edit another student's work in this area, though you are free to read it. Although material in this area doesn't directly count for the course grade (until you copy it into the main Wiki), I will use it to track your progress. Please keep your work log up to date.

Archive from Spring, 2015 Class

Public Policy on Selected Technology Issues: A Student-Produced Wiki 2015

Aereo and Copyright Law

• Background Materials
• Student-Written Project

The Net Neutrality Debate

• Background Materials
• Student-Written Project

The Privacy and Big Data Debate

• Background Materials
• Student-Written Project

Patent Trolls: Time for Action?

• Background Materials
• Student-Written Project

Additional Topics Investigated (small teams or individuals, less depth)

• Autonomous Vehicles: Ground and Air and Water
  • Background Materials
• The Sharing Economy
  • Background Materials
• Disruptive Book Publishing: Amazon and Google
  • Background Materials
• Europe's War Against Google
  • Background Materials
• Math/CS Education Reform
• Android and Resulting Lawsuits and Precedents

Archived schedule 2015

Individual Student Logs and Workspaces 2015

2015 Contributions Summaries and Links

Other

• More on the Rationale for This Course
• General Stuff You Should Know about This Class and UT
• Link to the team randomizer
• Wiki contribution stats (4/6/15)
• Link to 88th Academy Awards: WSJ odds

Getting started with the wiki

• A helpful MediaWiki tutorial (Google to find many more such tutorials on the web)
• Brief note on references and math notation in this Wiki
• Configuration settings list
• MediaWiki FAQ
• Cool URL Tricks for Google Docs