Home ›
Resources

Tech Ethics

3 cyber mercenaries: An insider threat case study

Article This article tells the story of three US nationals who assisted the United Arab Emirates in exploiting Apple's operating system and...
6 Links That Will Show You What Google Knows About You

Article In this article, there are 6 links featured that, when clicked, give you a peek into the data Google has...
ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct

Other This code of ethics put forth by the Association for Computing Machinery seeks to guide the ethical conduct of computing professionals.
Adblocking: How About Nah?

Article In this article, the author discusses the ethics of using an ad blocker, and highlighting the position that ad blockers give users...
Advanced Network Reconnaissance with Nmap

Video This video is a presentation by Gordoon Lyon aka Fydor, the creator of the nmap network scanner, from ShmooCon 2006. From...
Advertising is a cancer on society

Article In this article, the author argues that modern advertising is similar to how cancer takes over the human body. After...
A face-scanning algorithm increasingly decides whether you deserve the job

Article This article discusses HireVue, a technology that uses artificial intelligence to analyze job candidates. The article discusses both favorable and unfavorable...
After Working at Google, I'll Never Let Myself Love a Job Again

Article In this article, Emi Nietfeld describes what happened to her at Google, a company she once loved.
A horrifying new AI app swaps women into porn videos with a click

Article This article describes a website that creates pornography deepfakes. A deepfake is hyper-realistic fake audio or video content depicting something...
AI emotion-detection software tested on Uyghurs

Article This article describes how a Chinese software company tested their emotion recognition software on the Uyghurs, a marginalized ethnic group in...
AI-Generated Art Scene Explodes as Hackers Create Groundbreaking New Tools

Article This article describes how hackers combined different open source AI tools to create a visual art generator that creates an...
AI is increasingly being used to identify emotions – here’s what’s at stake

Article This article discusses some of the issues with Emotion Recognition Technology (ERT). ERT stands on shaky scientific ground and is prone...
Airbnb Was Like a Family, Until the Layoffs Started

Article In this article, Erin Griffith depicts the conflict that occurred when Airbnb's company culture faced the realities of the global...
Alexa, Should We Trust You?

Article This article discusses the potential of voice assistants like Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant to change our society. A big...
All Tesla Cars Being Produced Now Have Full Self-Driving Hardware

Article This 2016 blog post from Tesla's blog describes how all Tesla cars being produced from that point onward have full self-driving...
Amazon cloud sputters for hours, and a boatload of websites go offline

Article In this article, Brodkin reports on the IoT devices that went down during Amazon S3 outage.
American Spies: how we got to mass surveillance without even trying

Article This article is a book review of American Spies by Jennifer Stisa Granick. It describes the legal complications surrounding Internet privacy in the United...
A Message To Our Customers

Article This letter from Apple to its customers explains why Apple refused to comply with the FBI's request for a "backdoor" to...
An anonymous response to dangerous FOSS Codes of Conduct

Article In this article, an anonymous writer pens a response to what he believes are Dangerous FOSS Codes of Conduct. He argues the...
Andrew Yang Is Full of It

Article In this article, the author pushes back against Andrew Yang's dystopian warnings about automation and mass unemployment that have motivated...
An Evening with Berferd: In Which a Cracker is Lured, Endured, and Studied

Article This article is written by Bell Labs researcher Bill Cheswick about Unix security. Cheswick studied a hacker in the wild using an early...
A New Harassment Policy for Twitter

Article This article describes Twitter's 2014 response to targeted harassment on their site. This response included an easier way for users to manage...
Apple, Google will pay 64,000 engineers to avoid trial on “no-poach” deal

Article In this article, Joe Mullin talks about a class-action lawsuit against Google, Apple, Adobe, and Intel over how they recruited employees which was...
Are Hacker Break-Ins Ethical?

Article From the article description: Eugene H. Spafford argues that we should judge the actions of hackers, not the rationalizations they...
Are These the Hidden Deepfakes in the Anthony Bourdain Movie?

Article This article describes the controversy surrounding the use of deepfake audio clips in Roadrunner, a documentary about Anthony Bourdain made after his...
Aristotle & Virtue Theory: Crash Course Philosophy #38

Video From the video description: "This week we explore final ethical theory in this unit: Aristotle’s virtue theory. Hank explains the...
As Cameras Track Detroit’s Residents, a Debate Ensues Over Racial Bias

Article This article discusses the city of Detroit’s “Project Green Light” initiative which uses facial recognition surveillance to find criminals. Some...
Attack of the Anons Lecture Slides

Lecture / slides Slides for Lecture 13 of Ethical and Professional Issues in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department. The learning goals...
Automatic Discovery of Meme Genres with Diverse Appearances

Academic Paper This academic paper has the following abstract: Forms of human communication are not static — we expect some evolution in...
A Vulnerable Internet Lecture Slides

Lecture / slides Slides for Lecture 24 of Ethical and Professional Issues in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department. The learning goals for...
Barr says the US needs encryption backdoors to prevent “going dark.” Um, what?

Article This article discusses a 2019 keynote address by Attorney General William Barr in which he argued that information security "should not...
Being More Educated May not Make you More Satisfied with Your Job, Study Finds

Article In this article, it presents some interesting findings about education and job satisfaction. It finds, that you might wind up...
Benedictine College Raises the Bar in Fight Against Porn Addiction

Article This article describes Benedictine College’s efforts to discourage pornography viewing on campus. Not only did the Catholic college block pornography...
Better, Stronger, Faster

Other This text file from the Cult of the Dead Cow describes the NBC Dateline episode that featured the mysterious hacker "Quentin"...
Big Data Business Plan Lecture Slides

Lecture / slides In these lecture slides for the Ethical and Professional Issues course in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department, the following...
Boeing Employee Fired for Discussing Computer Security Problems at Company

Article This article tells the story of how Boeing fired an employee for speaking to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer about security issues at...
Bradley Manning’s Army of One

Article This article tells the story of Chelsea Manning (formerly Bradley Manning). The article tells Manning's life story and how that led...
Bridges, Software Engineering, and God

Article In this article, the author describes why software engineering is different from other forms of engineering. The author claims that...
Buffer Overflow Exploit

Digital Artifact This article describes the digital artifact of a buffer overflow exploit. A buffer overflow is an anomaly where a program writes...
Building A Better Future Lecture Slides

Lecture / slides Slides for Lecture 26 of Ethical and Professional Issues in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department. The learning goals for...
Capital One Data Breach Compromises Data of Over 100 Million

Article This article sheds light on a 2019 data breach of data from Capital One bank. The article explains how the suspect,...
Car makers can’t “drive their way to safety” with self-driving cars

Article In this article, the author argues that while autonomous vehicles are being promoted in the name of road safety, it...
Catholic Officials on Edge After Reports of Priests Using Grindr

Article This article describes the reports of Catholic clergy using the hookup app Grindr by the conservative Catholic blog The Pillar. Editors...
Cesare Lombroso

Academic Paper This academic paper has the following abstract: The Italian physician Cesare Lombroso, one of the first scientific criminologists and a forensic psychiatrist,...
Changes to Facebook’s "Real Names" Policy Still Don’t Fix the Problem

Article In this article, the authors discuss changes Facebook made to its "real names policy." The real names policy required Facebook users...
Change the World, cDc Style

Video This video is from the DefCon 27 Conference and is a presentation by the hacking group Cult of the Dead Cow. This...
Chapter 1 - Engineering Ethics

Book This book is an introductory textbook that explores many of the ethical issues that a practicing engineer might encounter in the...
China Presses Its Internet Censorship Efforts Across the Globe

Article This article describes the great lengths China goes to in order to censor anti-China content online. While it is well-known that...
China says terrorism, fake news impel greater global internet curbs

Article This article describes how China used terrorism and fake news threats as reasons to tighten their national Internet censorship. China likened...
China’s Global Reach: Surveillance and Censorship Beyond the Great Firewall

Article This article describes the ways China is able to influence Internet censorship not just domestically but also worldwide. China is able...
Cities Have Taken the Lead in Regulating Driverless Vehicles

Article This article describes how cities, rather than federal or state governments, have taken the lead on autonomous vehicle regulation. The article...
Cities Need to Take the Wheel in Our Driverless Future

Article In this article, the author argues that cities need to play an active and thoughtful role in regulating the introduction...
Clearview AI finally takes part in a federal accuracy test

Article This article describes how the controversial facial recognition algorithm from Clearview AI was put to a third party test for...
Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking

Book This book was written by scholar Gabriella Coleman about the ethics and history of the hacking community. The particular chapter read...
Companies Say Trump is Hurting Business By Limiting Legal Immigration

Article This article explores some of the downsides of limiting legal immigration. The article profiles business owners and managers in a variety...
Computer security faults put Boeing at risk

Article This article is the article through which a Boeing whistleblower exposed Boeing's internal security risks. Through interviewing Boeing employees and reviewing...
Consolidation in the Internet Economy

Article In this article, answer "How will consolidation impact the Internet’s technical evolution and use?"
Contributor Covenant

Other This code of ethics outlines standards of behavior for people contributing to open source projects and participating in open source communities.
Credit reporting firm Equifax says data breach could potentially affect 143 million US consumers

Article This article describes a 2017 data breach affecting Equifax, a company providing credit information. The breach potentially affected 143 million consumers...
Cyberbullying: what it is and how to avoid it

Article This article on cyberbullying describes what it is, its effects, how parents can talk about cyberbullying with their children, and practical tips...
Darknet Diaries Ep: 45 Xbox Underground

Video This video details one of the biggest hacks on the Xbox gaming console. From the video description, "It started as a...
Dateline on Computer Hacking

Video In this NBC Dateline episode from 1992, the hosts expose how hackers are easily able to break into the computer systems...
Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

Article In this article, the author tells Silicon Valley that America has fallen out of love with it. The author lists...
Deepfakes Are Now Making Business Pitches

Article This article describes how deepfakes--hyper-realistic fake videos--are making their way into the business world. Specifically, the article profiles how EY uses...
Deepfake satellite imagery poses a not-so-distant threat, warn geographers

Article This article describes the threat of geographic deepfakes. Most people think of deepfakes as hyper-realistic fake videos of people saying...
Deepfakes in cyberattacks aren’t coming. They’re already here.

Article This article outlines some of the concerns about deepfakes—hyper-realistic fake videos created with artificial intelligence. The concerns listed in the...
Defund Facial Recognition

Article This article describes how facial recognition in policing is a particular threat to Black lives and to democracy. The article...
Designed to Deceive: Do These People Look Real to You?

Article This article describes how machine learning algorithms (specifically Generative Adversarial Networks or GANs) are able to create incredibly realistic-looking human...
Dialogue Group 1

Dialogue Group This dialogue group meeting prompt was used in the Ethical and Professional Issues Course in Notre Dame's Computer Science and...
Dialogue Group 10

Dialogue Group This dialogue group meeting prompt was used in the Ethical and Professional Issues Course in Notre Dame's Computer Science and...
Dialogue Group 11

Dialogue Group This dialogue group meeting prompt was used in the Ethical and Professional Issues Course in Notre Dame's Computer Science and...
Dialogue Group 2

Dialogue Group This dialogue group meeting prompt was used in the Ethical and Professional Issues Course in Notre Dame's Computer Science and...
Dialogue Group 3

Dialogue Group This dialogue group meeting prompt was used in the Ethical and Professional Issues Course in Notre Dame's Computer Science and...
Dialogue Group 4

Dialogue Group This dialogue group meeting prompt was used in the Ethical and Professional Issues Course in Notre Dame's Computer Science and...
Dialogue Group 5

Dialogue Group This dialogue group meeting prompt was used in the Ethical and Professional Issues Course in Notre Dame's Computer Science and...
Dialogue Group 6

Dialogue Group This dialogue group meeting prompt was used in the Ethical and Professional Issues Course in Notre Dame's Computer Science and...
Dialogue Group 7

Dialogue Group This dialogue group meeting prompt was used in the Ethical and Professional Issues Course in Notre Dame's Computer Science and...
Dialogue Group 8

Dialogue Group This dialogue group meeting prompt was used in the Ethical and Professional Issues Course in Notre Dame's Computer Science and...
Dialogue Group 9

Dialogue Group This dialogue group meeting prompt was used in the Ethical and Professional Issues Course in Notre Dame's Computer Science and...
Dialogue Group Meeting 0

Dialogue Group This dialogue group meeting prompt was used in the Ethical and Professional Issues Course in Notre Dame's Computer Science and...
Disinformation

Video In this video from the 1990s, members of the hacking group the Cult of the Dead Cow comment on where they...
Don't Give Silicon Valley More H1B Visas

Article In this article, the author argues again giving Silicon Valley more H1B Visas. The author argues that the H1B Visa...
Economic Inequality

Article In this article, Graham sheds light on the roots of economic inequality.
Edmonton gore site owner charged in Magnotta video investigation released on bail

Article This article describes the legal action taken towards Mark Marek, the owner of the website bestgore.com that hosted a video...
Edward Snowden, the media, and the Espionage Act

Article In this article, the author argues that Edward Snowden should not be pardoned. The author argues that Snowden's intention was...
Emotion AI researchers say overblown claims give their work a bad name

Article This article discusses emotion recognition, the technology used by HireVue to screen job candidates using artificial intelligence. The article discusses the limitations...
Employees Who Stay In Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

Article In this article, Cameron Keng provides evidence that staying employed at the same company for over two years on average is...
Engineers Are Leaving Trump’s America for the Canadian Dream

Article This article highlights the stories of former United States H-1B workers who moved to Canada because of its more welcoming immigration policy. It...
Ethical and Professional Issues Trailer

Video From the video description: "Prof. Walter Scheirer (Computer Science, University of Notre Dame) introduces his new course, 'Ethical and Professional...
Ethics and the Second Law of Thermodynamics

Article In this article, the author discusses the reality that many engineers who have gotten into trouble because of ethical violations...
Europe Wants to Ban Facial Recognition—Take Note, America

Article This article discusses how the European Parliament has called on EU lawmakers to ban biometric surveillance in public spaces. Members...
'Every smile you fake' — an AI emotion-recognition system can assess how 'happy' China's workers are in the office

Article In this article, a Chinese emotion recognition system is described. The developers of this technology claim that their system can...
“Everything as a service” is coming—but we’re not there quite yet

Article This article discusses some of the challenges in moving towards cloud computing as a service. One issue mentioned is privacy and...
Everything is GamerGate

Article This compilation of reflections places the GamerGate campaign in context with other current events. GamerGate was an online harassment campaign targeted initially at...
Facebook Knew I Was Gay Before My Family Did

Article This article tells the story of a closeted gay Facebook user who received targeted ads offering assistance with coming out. The...
Facebook Knows Instagram Is Toxic for Teen Girls, Company Documents Show

Article In this article, take a look at Facebook's own in-depth research which shows a significant teen mental-health issue. Thus far, Facebook has...
Facebook scientists say they can now tell where deepfakes have come from

Article This article describes deepfake detection software created by Facebook and Michigan State. The software is able to determine not only...
Facebook Tried to Make Its Platform a Healthier Place. It Got Angrier Instead.

Article In this article, the authors discuss Facebook's internal memos which show how a big 2018 change rewarded outrage and how CEO...
Face-Off Lecture Slides

Lecture / slides Slides for Lecture 21 of Ethical and Professional Issues in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department. The learning goals...
FACT CHECK: Do Robots Or Trade Threaten American Workers More?

Article This article fact checks claims made by Elizabeth Warren and Andrew Yang in a 2019 Democratic presidential debate regarding if...
Feds defend voluntary robot car regulations

Article This article describes the arguments for and against robot car regulations. While safety advocates argue for strict autonomous vehicle regulations, the...
Florida State Student Faces Felony Charges for Redirecting School's Wifi Users to Infamous Shock Site

Article This article tells the story of a Florida State student who faced felony charges after hacking the school’s wifi network...
For Young Female Coders, Internship Interviews Can Be Toxic

Article In this article, it discusses a survey conducted by Girls Who Code where teen female engineers report that even their very...
From Anon to Alt-Right: The Dangerous Tricksters of 4chan

Article In this article, Joanne McNeil outlines how 4Chan's activist arm "Anon" moved evolved from genuine, albeit avant-garde, activism to a breeding...
From driverless dilemmas to more practical commonsense tests for automated vehicles

Academic Paper This academic paper has the following abstract: "For the first time in history, automated vehicles (AVs) are being deployed in...
From Internet Farming to Weapons of the Geek

Article This article details the history of political hacking by Gabriella Coleman in which she provides an introduction and inventory of the...
From Memes to Infowars: How 75 Fascist Activists Were “Red-Pilled”

Article This article describes the "red-pilling" phenomenon--how people with mainstream beliefs are converted to far-right fascist ways of thinking. Specifically, this article...
Fueling the Hong Kong Protests: A World of Pop-Culture Memes

Article This article describes the pop culture memes employed by anti-government protestors in Hong Kong in 2019. The memes come from...
Future of Travel Lecture Slides

Lecture / slides Slides for Lecture 19 of Ethical and Professional Issues in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department. In this lecture, the...
GamerGate's Archvillain Is Really A Trolling Sketch Comedian

Article This article tells the story of Jan Rankowski, an Internet satiritst and comedian. Rankowski experienced harassment after he posted a video satirizing "GamerGaters"...
Give Up On Work-Life Balance

Article In this article, Olga Khazan argues that the best way to stay sane while managing work and life is to...
Gmail and other popular Google services experienced a partial service outage at a very bad time

Article In this article, Oreskovic reports on some of Google's most popular services, including Gmail and Google Calendar, that experienced technical...
GNU General Public License, v.2

Digital Artifact This digital artifact is a well known legal hack also known as a "copyleft" (a play on copyrights). The GNU Public License,...
Good Work

Book The description for this book is as follows: "What does it mean to carry out "good work"? What strategies allow...
Google Employee Alleges Discrimination Against Pregnant Women in Viral Memo

Article In this article, the authors discuss a memo written by a Google employee who was discriminated against for being pregnant,...
Google Employee Writes Memo About ‘The Burden of Being Black at Google’

Article In this article, a memo from a former Google employee is discussed. In the memo, the ex-employee criticized the internet...
Group claims to hack NSA-tied hackers, posts exploits as proof

Article This article tells the story of a hacking group called the Shadow Brokers that claimed to have hacked the NSA's hacking...
Group Project 00: Your Upcoming Career in Tech

Group Project In this group project, students in the Ethical and Professional Issues course in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department...
Group Project 01: The Social Media Situation

Group Project In this group project, students in the Ethical and Professional Issues course in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department are...
Group Project 02: A Letter to the Editor from Citizens Concerned About AI

Group Project In this group project, students in the Ethical and Professional Issues course in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department are...
Group Project 03: A Visual Guide to Security and Privacy

Group Project In this group project, students in the Ethical and Professional Issues course in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department are...
Guardian of the GPL: Online advertising is becoming “a perfect despotism”

Article In this article, the author provides an overview of Eben Moglen (Guardian of the GPL)' s thoughts on why online...
H-1B: Foreign citizens make up nearly three-quarters of Silicon Valley tech workforce, report says

Article In this article, Ethan Baron reports on the reality that a majority of Silicon Valley and Seattle-area tech workers are...
Hacker Documentary: Unauthorized Access by Annaliza Savage [1994]

Video This video has the following YouTube description: This is a nostalgic hacker documentary about the early to mid 90s computer...
Hackers and Painters

Article In this essay, Dr. Graham addresses creativity, time, and success in technology.
Hacking at the Crossroad: U.S. Military Funding of Hackerspaces

Article This article is an influential piece written by the inventor Mitch Altman about the influence of defense funding in technological development. It...
Hacking Security

Article In this article, the authors argue that today's security issues are not information security threats, but rather "abuse." Abuse is...
Have Autonomous Vehicles Hit A Roadblock?

Article This article argues that despite promises to have fully autonomous vehicles hit the roads around 2021-2022, the reality is that they...
Here Comes The Robot Revolution Lecture Slides

Lecture / slides Slides for Lecture 18 of Ethical and Professional Issues in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department. In this lecture, the...
Here's How Google Makes Sure It (Almost) Never Goes Down

Article In this article, take a look at a new book that peers into the system that keeps Google up and...
Hiring is Broken And Yours Is Too

Article In this article, Prabhakar discusses various interview practices and why "everyone’s hiring practices are broken".
HoHoCon 1992 Miscellany

Article This text file describes how "Project Green Cheese" came up at HoHoCon 1992. For context, this text file should be considered...
How Artificial Intelligence and Robots Will Radically Transform the Economy

Article This article discusses how automating away jobs isn’t always a bad thing. The article begins with the example of automated...
How bosses are (literally) like dictators

In this article, Elizabeth Anderson argues that businesses are a form of government, and that workplaces are predominantly spaces of...
How China uses facial recognition to control human behavior

Article This article describes China’s extreme usage of facial recognition surveillance. While in the US facial recognition surveillance is used to...
How Companies Learn Your Secrets

Article In this article, the author tells the story of how Target learned to identify when women are pregnant to target...
How Computer Science at CMU Is Attracting and Retaining Women

Article In this article, it discusses how CMU has attracted a higher rate of women in its computer science program than...
How Congress Censored the Internet

Article This article discusses the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) that undermines Section 230 to make...
How Dangerous is Cyberbullying?

Article In this article, George Beall describes the current state of cyberbullying. The article includes who is being cyberbullied, motivations for cyberbullying,...
How Facebook Hobbled Mark Zuckerberg’s Bid to Get America Vaccinated

Article In this article from the Wall Street Journal's Facebook Files, the authors describe how despite Facebook's best efforts to promote true...
How Facial Recognition Is Fighting Child Sex Trafficking

Article This article discusses how facial recognition technology is being used to fight child sex trafficking. The Spotlight tool matches faces...
How Facial Recognition Technology Is Helping Identify the U.S. Capitol Attackers

Article This article describes how facial recognition technology was used to identify people who participated in the January 6, 2021 attacks...
How goatse.cx went from shock site to webmail service

Article This article tells the story of the website goatse.cx. Originally a shock site with an awful image, the domain was purchased...
How Hackers Broke Into Real News Sites to Plant Fake Stories

Article This article describes how a hacking group targeted Eastern European countries with disinformation campaigns. Their strategy was to hack the content...
How Life Became an Endless, Terrible Competition

Article In this article, talks about the costs of the meritocracy. Meritocracy prizes achievement above all else, making everyone—even the rich—miserable. The...
How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation

Article In this article, Peterson explains how the stereotypes commonly associated with millennials - lazy, entitled, spoiled - can mostly be...
How Much Surveillance Can Democracy Withstand?

Article This article discusses how limits must be put on surveillance in order to maintain a healthy democracy. The author poses...
How Russian Trolls Used Meme Warfare to Divide America

Article This article describes how the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian propaganda wing, infiltrated American social media users’ feeds with...
How the Bobos Broke America

Article In this article, the author discusses how the creative class was supposed to foster progressive values and economic growth. The...
How to Deal With Deceptive Colleagues at Work

Article In this article, the author describes ways in which employees deceive their coworkers and how deceptive behaviors lead to a...
How to Fight Fake News on Vaccines

Video This video explains how misinformation spread about the HPV vaccine and how one woman with cervical cancer fought to reverse that...
How to make AI less racist

Article This article discusses how negative biases, for example racial biases, can be baked into artificial intelligence algorithms through the use...
How to Recognize Burnout Before You're Burned Out

Article This article explains what burnout is and enumerates common work stressors, signs of burnout to watch for, and ways to combat burnout...
How to Work Hard

Article In this article, Graham address working hard and lessons he's learned.
How WhatsApp Destroyed a Village

Article This article discusses how false information about child abductions circulating WhatsApp in India caused at least 29 deaths from people attacking...
HyperNormalisation

Video In this video, Adam Curtis, a cult documentary maker, explores the falsity of modern life in his own inimitable style. Though he’s...
‘I made Steve Bannon’s psychological warfare tool’: meet the data war whistleblower

Article In this article, Christopher Wylie, a young man who was the brains behind Cambridge Analytica, comes forward to share his...
Immigrants Help Solve the Looming STEM Worker Shortage

Article In this article, the author promotes a looser immigration policy for foreign skilled workers. The author argues that there are not...
Incels Categorize Women by Personal Style and Attractiveness

Article This article describes the “Intel” Internet subculture. “Incels” are “involuntarily celibate” men—men who not only struggle to find sexual partners,...
In Silicon Valley, Working 9 to 5 Is For Losers

Article In this article, Dan Lyons describes the "Hustle Culture" phenomenon in Silicon Valley, where workers idolize overworking. Lyons outlines some...
Interns’ Job Prospects Constrained by Noncompete Agreements

Article In this article, Harriet Torry discusses legal pacts that can limit résumé content and employment options, including those for interns.
In This Economy, Quitters Are Winning

Article In this article, the authors discuss an increase in job-hopping which may give way to wage growth and productivity in...
Introducing the LAN Turtle

Video This video is an introduction to the LAN Turtle by Hak5 an infosec company founded in 2005. From the video description, "The LAN...
Is Facebook Making Us Lonely

Article In this article, Stephen Marche talks about how even though social media has made society more densely networked than ever, it may be making...
Islamic State’s TikTok Posts Include Beheading Videos

Article This article discusses how the Islamic state posted videos of executions and tortures to Tik tok. These videos are a...
Is Net Neutrality Good or Bad for Innovation?

Article This article outlines the arguments surrounding net neutrality and its effect on the economy. There is no clear answer--economists have modeled...
I Spent 24 Hours in the Metaverse. I Made Friends, Did Work and Panicked About the Future.

Article This article is a journalist's reflections on spending 24 hours using Meta's Oculus Quest 2 virtual-reality headset. She noted that Metaverse meetings are...
Is the H-1B Program a Cynical Attempt to Undercut American Workers?

Article In this article, Derek Thompson looks at the pros and cons of the H1-B Visa program. While he concedes that...
“It Gets Better”: Internet memes and the construction of collective identity

Academic Paper This academic paper has the following abstract: In September 2010, a video titled “It Gets Better” was uploaded to YouTube,...
I Was a Stranger Lecture Slides

Lecture / slides Through these lecture slides for Notre Dame Computer Science and Engineering's Ethical and Professional Issues course, the following learning goals are...
Julian Assange: The 2011 60 Minutes Interview

Article From the video description: Steve Kroft interviews the controversial founder of WikiLeaks. For more, click here: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/julian-assange-the-2011-60-minutes-interview/
Just Because You Always Hear It, Doesn’t Mean It’s True: Gender Difference Explanations For Disparities in Tech Are Not Supported by Science

Article In this article, NCWIT explains why gender differences are not supported by science, and how most disparities between men and women...
Keystroke tracking, screenshots, and facial recognition: The boss may be watching long after the pandemic ends

Article This article describes how companies track their employees through video feed data/facial recognition, keystroke tracking, and screenshots. This type of...
Kindness is Underrated

Article In this article, the author responds to Linus Tovalds’s tendency towards blunt, crass criticism with an argument for kindness. The...
Leaking Like A Sieve Lecture Slides

Lecture / slides Slides for Lecture 25 of Ethical and Professional Issues in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department. The learning goals for...
Legal Shield for Websites Rattles Under Onslaught of Hate Speech

Article This article discusses Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects Internet companies from liability for content created by their...
Lets talk about the H-1B Visa

Article In this article, the author describes the drawbacks of the current H-1B Visa program and proposes reforms so the program...
Linus Torvalds defends his right to shame Linux kernel developers

Article In this article, we see the interactions between the crass Linux creator Linus Torvalds and software developer Sarah Sharp. Sharp...
Linus Torvalds: 'I'll never be cuddly but I can be more polite'

Article In this article, Linus Torvalds admits that his interactions within the Linux developer community were rather strong while distancing himself...
Linus Torvalds on his insults: respect should be earned

Video In this video, Linus Torvalds (creator of Linux and Git), defends abrasive comments he makes towards other codes (e.g. "you...
Machines, Modifications of Nature, and Engineering Ethics

Article In this article, the author argues that while codes of conduct are important, they are not sufficient in solving the...
Major camera company can sort people by race, alert police when it spots Uighurs

Article This article describes a facial-recognition technology by the Chinese company Dahua that is tuned to spot Uighurs, a minority ethnic...
Maybe We All Need a Little Less Balance

Article In this article, Brad Stulberg argues that balance is not something we should strive for. Stulberg argues that people are...
Memes Against Decadence

Article In this article, Ross Douthat explores how memes and other virtual "realities" can exist long enough to change the real...
Memes in a Digital World: Reconciling with a Conceptual Troublemaker

Academic Paper This academic paper has the following abstract: This paper re-examines the concept of “meme” in the context of digital culture....
Memetic Warfare Lecture Slides

Lecture / slides Slides for Lecture 15 of Ethical and Professional Issues in Notre Dame's Computer Science department. In this lecture, the following...
MIT Report Examines How to Make Technology Work for Society

Article This article describes the findings from MIT’s Task Force on Work of the Future. The report finds that while the...
Modern Porn Education Is Totally Unprepared for Modern Porn

Article This article highlights the need for teenagers to have porn literacy. The proliferation of extreme pornography can numb viewers of...
More and Faster

Lecture / slides Lecture slides for Lecture 08 of Ethical and Professional Issues in Notre Dame's Computer Science & Engineering department. These lecture slides cover...
Most computer science majors in the U.S. are men. Not so at Harvey Mudd

Article In this article, it takes a look at Harvey Mudd where more than half of computer science graduates are women.
Naive Meritocracy and the Meanings of Myth

Article In this article, Reagle proposes that so-called meritocracies reproduce extant members and favor incidental attributes; they are biased, susceptible to...
Narrative technologies meets virtue ethics in alternate reality: investigating the possibility of a narrative virtue ethics of technology, using the example of pokémon go

Academic Paper This academic paper has the following abstract: Virtue ethics offers a promising starting point for thinking about ethics of technology....
Nerdy Strutting: How to Put Women Off the Tech Industry

Article In this article, Judy Robertson discusses nerd-strutting, or "a style of interaction where people show off their knowledge by asking questions...
Note to employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

Article In this article, Google CEO Sundar Pichai responds to Damore's memo.
Not Everyone in Tech Cheers Visa Program for Foreign Workers

Article In this article, the authors highlight stories of American tech workers who lost their jobs to foreign H1-B Visa holders....
Nvidia faked part of a press conference with a CGI CEO

Article This article describes how Nvidia used a CGI/deepfake version of their CEO to give a portion of a keynote speech at a...
One Month, 500,000 Face Scans: How China Is Using A.I. to Profile a Minority

Article This article describes how China is using facial recognition technology to track the Uighurs, a minority ethnic group in China....
OnlyFans Is Not a Safe Platform for ‘Sex Work.’ It’s a Pimp.

Article In this article, the author argues that “sex work” is neither sex nor work, and that calling it that is...
On Parenthood

Article In this article, prominent software developer Jeff Atwood describes his love of fatherhood and how parenthood has changed him for...
On the Precipice? Lecture Slides

Lecture / slides Lecture slides for the introductory lecture of Ethical and Professional Issues (in Computer Science). In this lecture, the following learning...
On the Virtual Frontier of the Imagination

Book In this book chapter, Walter Scheirer discusses a very early instance of faking the news in which a group of...
Owning Ethics: Corporate Logics, Silicon Valley, and the Institutionalization of Ethics

Article In this article, the authors study the attempts to institutionalize ethics within Silicon Valley tech companies. Through interviewing those responsible for thinking...
Paul Graham has accidentally explained everything wrong with Silicon Valley’s world view

Article In this article, the author counters some of the points that Paul Graham made in his article on Economic Inequality. She...
Philosophy & Ethics of Technology | Is Technology Good, Bad or Neutral?

Video In this video, the ideas and arguments from the philosophy paper "Is Technology Value Neutral?" by Boaz Miller are covered....
Photoshop Fantasies

Book In this piece, Walter Scheirer discusses the history of image manipulation. Although image manipulation is generally considered to be dishonest, Scheirer...
Physiognomy's New Clothes

Article In this article, the authors discuss the history of physiognomy, or "scientific racism," and how some machine learning scientists today...
Pillar Investigates: USCCB gen sec Burrill resigns after sexual misconduct allegations

Article This article describes how Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill, Catholic priest and former general secretary of the U.S. bishops’ conference, was accused of sexual...
Pitfalls in Machine Learning Research: Reexamining the Development Cycle

Academic Paper This academic paper has the following abstract: Applied machine learning research has the potential to fuel further advances in data science,...
Political tension at Google is only getting worse

Article In this article, another former engineer has alleged that the company fired him over his political beliefs.
Posting less, posting more, and tired of it all: How the pandemic has changed social media

Article In this article, it examines how after one year, Covid-19 has altered how people use social media.
Privacy Fundamentalism

Article In this article, the author argues that there are alarmist privacy arguments out there and explains why one by Farhad...
Programmers: Stop Calling Yourselves Engineers

Article In this article, the author argues that programmers should stop calling themselves engineers. The author argues that "engineering" implies a...
Programming, Power, and Responsibility

Article In this article the author forms a metaphor of code as a social contract and reflects on the power given to...
Protesters are weaponising memes to fight police surveillance

Article This article describes how amidst the Black Lives Matter/anti-police brutality protests of spring 2020, memes were used as a tool...
Push for Gender Equality in Tech? Some Men Say It’s Gone Too Far

Article In this article, it discusses how some men have recently spoken out about their feelings on gender equality in tech.
Qanon Deploys 'Information Warfare' to Influence the 2020 Election

Article This article describes how the Qanon conspiracy theories infliltrate social media. The article argues that the spread of Qanon content signals a...
Ransomware attacks are getting more complex and even harder to prevent

Article This article discusses the threat of ransomware attacks. Ransomware attackers are launching attacks faster than vendors can patch the vulnerabilities, and...
Reading Quiz 01

Reading Quiz This reading quiz was used in the Ethical and Professional Issues course in the Computer Science and Engineering department at Notre...
Reading Quiz 02

Reading Quiz This reading quiz was used in the Ethical and Professional Issues course in the Computer Science and Engineering department at Notre...
Reading Quiz 03

Reading Quiz The third reading quiz for the Ethical and Professional Issues course in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department. The quiz...
Reading Quiz 04

Reading Quiz This reading quiz for the Ethical and Professional Issue course in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering Department covers the following...
Reading Quiz 05

Reading Quiz This reading quiz covers the following readings: How bosses are (literally) like dictators (Anderson) The code I'm still ashamed of (Sourour)...
Reading Quiz 06

Reading Quiz This reading quiz from the Ethical and Professional Issues course in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department covers the following...
Reading Quiz 07

Reading Quiz This reading quiz from the Ethical and Professional Issues course in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department covers the following...
Reading Quiz 08

Reading Quiz This reading quiz was used in the Ethical and Professional Issues course in the Computer Science and Engineering department at Notre...
Reading Quiz 09

Reading Quiz This reading quiz for Ethical and Professional Issues in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering Department covers the following readings: Why...
Reading Quiz 10

Reading Quiz This reading quiz was used in the Ethical and Professional Issues course in the Computer Science and Engineering department at Notre Dame....
Reading Quiz 11

Reading Quiz This reading quiz was used in the Ethical and Professional Issues course in the Computer Science and Engineering department at Notre...
Reading Quiz 12

Reading Quiz This reading quiz was used in the Ethical and Professional Issues course in the Computer Science and Engineering department at Notre...
Reading Quiz 13

Reading Quiz This reading quiz was used in the Ethical and Professional Issues course in the Computer Science and Engineering department at Notre...
Reconsidering Anonymity in the Age of Narcissism

Article In this article, Gabriella Coleman reflects on the importance of anonymity and how it is almost impossible on the Internet...
Reddit cracks down on abuse as CEO apologizes for trolling the trolls

Article This article describes how user trust in Reddit was compromised when the CEO used his admin access privilege to tamper with comments on r/the_donald....
Reddit Troll Ban Helped Cut Hateful Speech

Article This article discusses the results of a quasi-experiment on the effect of hate speech on Reddit after the banning of two subreddits full of...
Reflecting On One Very, Very Strange Year At Uber

Article In this article, Susan Fowler discusses her reasons for leaving Uber.
Reflecting on Susan Fowler’s Reflections

Article In this article, Aimee Lucido reflects on the article written by Susan Fowler, discussing her negative experience with Uber.
Reflections on Trusting Trust

Article This article is a written version of an Alan Turing Award Lecture from Ken Thomson in 1984. This article is a...
Researchers Create 'Master Faces' to Bypass Facial Recognition

Article This article describes how researchers generated nine "master key" fake faces that are able to impersonate almost half of the faces in...
Responses to Critiques on Machine Learning of Criminality Perceptions

Academic Paper In this academic paper and its response, the authors of a controversial paper that uses machine learning to determine criminality...
RETRACTED ARTICLE: Criminal tendency detection from facial images and the gender bias effect

Academic Paper This retracted academic paper seeks to predict criminality from facial images using deep learning. Other scientists criticize this work as having flawed methods.
Revisiting Meatspin, the NSFW site that shocked a generation

Article This article tells the story of the shocking website “meatspin” which depicted a penis spinning to the tune of Dead...
Scheirer on Fake Content

Video In this video, Walter Scheirer talks about his research and insight into fake content on the internet, today and throughout its...
Scheirer on Improving Tech

Video From the video description: Prof. Walter Scheirer (Computer Science, University of Notre Dame) thinks about the state of the tech...
Scheirer on Start-ups

Video In this video, Dr. Walter Scheirer discusses the benefits of starting your own start-up rather than working for an established company...
Scheirer on Tech Ethics

Video In this video, Dr. Sheirer gives an introduction to tech ethics.
Science Fiction Lecture Slides

Lecture / slides Slides for Lecture 22 of Ethical and Professional Issues in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department. The learning goals for...
Seeing Is Believing Lecture Slides

Lecture / slides Slides for lecture 20 of Ethical and Professional Issues in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department. In this lecture, the...
Self-driving car accidents: Robot drivers are ‘odd, and that’s why they get hit’

Article This article describes a surprising reason why self-driving vehicles get into accidents: they are too cautious. The article argues that because...
Self-driving cars still can’t mimic the most natural human behavior

Article In this article, the author argues that in order to have safer self-driving cars, the cars need to be able to mimic...
Self-Driving Cars Still Don't Know How to See

Article In this article, Meredith Broussard highlights the dangers of self-driving cars. Broussard expands upon the fact that cars don't see...
Senate passes controversial online sex trafficking bill

Article This article describes an online sex trafficking bill passed by the Senate in 2018. The bill, called the Allow States and Victims...
Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

Article In this article, the authors discuss their thoughts on the "sex differences" in STEM.
Should I Always Listen to My Boss? Lecture Slides

Lecture / slides Slides for Lecture 10 of Ethical and Professional Issues in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering Department. This lecture covers...
Silicon Valley Isn't a Meritocracy. And It's Dangerous to Hero-Worship Entrepreneurs

Article In this article, it discusses meritocracy and entrepreneurialism reinforce a closed system of privilege. It also reveals the threadbare nature...
Silicon Valley's “Body Shop” Secret: Highly Educated Foreign Workers Treated Like Indentured Servants

Article In this article, NBC's Bay Area Investigative Unit and The Center for Investigative Reporting report on an organized system for supplying cheap...
Silicon Valley's Unchecked Arrogance

Article In this article, the author argues that the idea of Universal Basic Income comes from Silicon Valley’s arrogant view toward...
Sniffer FAQ

Article This article is written by an early computer security company founded in 1994 and later was acquired by IBM in 2006....
Snuff: Murder and torture on the internet, and the people who watch it

Article This article discusses shocking and gruesome content online and the people who view it. The viewers of gruesome content online...
Social Engineering A Way of Life

Article This article is written by the hacker Malefactor [OC] in textfiles.com which provides a guide to hackers and phreaks on social...
So Much for Decentralized Internet

Article In this article, Georgia Tech professor Ian Bogost makes an urgent argument in The Atlantic that the commercialization and centralization of the internet puts...
Still the Trump social media ban

Article This article puts former president Donald Trump's social media ban in perspective by inviting readers to hypothetically consider their reactions if...
Study finds gender and skin-type bias in commercial artificial-intelligence systems

Article This article tells the story of how Joy Buolamwini, a Black researcher at the MIT Media Lab, discovered that facial...
Stuxnet Worm

Digital Artifact This article describes the history and technological development of the Stuxnet Worm. The Stuxnet Worm is a malicious computer worm that was...
Submit documents to WikiLeaks

Other This is the submission page to WikiLeaks: https://wikileaks.org/Press.html#submit_help_contact This page can be important for students to see as they learn about...
Synthetic Media: How deepfakes could soon change our world

Article This article discusses deepfakes. Deepfakes are audio and video recordings that appear to be real, but actually use artificial intelligence...
Tech Giants, Once Seen as Saviors, Are Now Viewed as Threats

Article In this article, Streitfeld notes that at the start of this decade, the Arab Spring blossomed with the help of social media,...
Technical and Cultural Revolutions

Video This video is from OSCON 2014 and the keynote speaker Tim O'Reilly, the founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media. From the video...
Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting

Book From the abstract of the book listed on the Oxford University Press Scholarship Online: "This book explores the implications of...
Terminating Service for 8Chan

Article This blog post from Cloudflare explains why two years after kicking The Daily Stormer off their network, they decided to stop...
The Alt-Right Are Savvy Internet Users. Stop Letting Them Surprise You

Article In this article, the author discusses how far-right influencers gain popularity on YouTube through gaming the "attention economy." The author...
The Best Action is the One in According with Universal Rules

Book In this book excerpt, James Rachels explains the Kantian view. This view states that people should always be treated as...
The Best Action is the One That Exercises the Mind's Faculties

Philosophical Text In this philosophical text, Aristotle discusses what constitutes an ethical action. He argues that an ethical action is one that...
The Best Action is the One with the Best Consequences

Book In this book excerpt, it examines three ethical models: utilitarian, Kantian, and Nicomachean. In studying the following sections, consider how...
The Burnout Society

Book In this book, philosopher Byung-Chul Han argues that the so-called advances of the 21st century were supposed to make our lives...
The Capital of Meritocracy is Silicon Valley, Not Wall Street

Article In this article, the author explains that meritocracy and entrepreneurialism reinforce a closed system of privilege. It also reveals the...
The Case For Doing Nothing

Article In this article, Olga Mecking introduces the Danish concept niksen--doing nothing. Mecking highlights the benefits of doing nothing from time to time--it...
The Children of Pornhub

Article This article exposes how easy it is for pornographic videos posted without the subject of the video’s consent and/or pornographic...
The code I'm still ashamed of

Article In this article, the author describes an experience he had as a young coder where his job required him to...
The compelling case for working a lot less

Article In this article, Amanda Ruggieri explores the compelling evidence against nonstop work, including that the work produced at the end...
The Conscience of a Hacker

Article This article was written by a computer hacker who went by the pseudonym The Mentor. The article sheds light on the...
The Convenience-Surveillance Tradeoff

Article In this article, Adrienne LaFrance discusses how Americans view the tradeoffs between privacy and surveillance based on a recent. Pew study....
The “Criminality from Face” Illusion

Academic Paper This academic paper has the following abstract: The automatic analysis of face images can generate predictions about a person’s gender,...
The Culture Wars Have Come to Silicon Valley 560

Article In this article, the author discusses the culture wars that have consumed politics in the United States and have now...
The Dehumanizing Myth of the Meritocracy

Article In this article, Ehmke looks at what happens when the meritocracy and open source software collide. She hopes to answer the...
The Driverless-Car Pile-Up

Article In this article, venture capitalist Michael Gibson describes his take on which autonomous vehicle companies to invest in. Gibson argues...
The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer

Article In this article, Claire Lehmann interviews a talented engineer who is "not neurotypical" and discusses the lack of empathy in the...
The First Women in Tech Didn’t Leave—Men Pushed Them Out

Article In this article, Mims discusses the prevalence of sexism in the tech industry. In this article, hear female entrepreneurs and...
The Future Of The Culture Wars Is Here, And It's Gamergate

Article This article discusses how the GamerGate controversy fits in with the cultural context of the culture wars at large. After a...
The Government's Fight to Make Encryption Illegal

Video This video is the third-part of a four part documentary by ReasonTV titled "Cypherpunks Write Code". From the video description: In 1977,...
The Hacker Crackdown (Complete Book)

Book The complete online version of the book The Hacker Crackdown. From Wikipedia: "The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the...
The Hacker Hacked

Article This article discusses how the original hacker ethos was "gentrified" by yuppies. The original hacker ethos was wild with an outsider...
The Improbability Party

Article This article discusses how data scientists try to predict the future why they will always have trouble when they try to...
The Internet's public enema No. 1

Article This article discusses the shock content website Rotten.com. Rotten.com is a database of horrifying images that gets around 200,000 visitors...
The Light It Up Contest

Video This video is by the famous hacker George Hotz also known as Geohot. He is known for developing iOS jailbreaks, reverse engineering...
The Menace and Promise of Autonomous Vehicles

Article In this article, Jacob Silverman explores the issue of when autonomous vehicles make mistakes and cause accidents. Silverman highlights the...
The metaverse is here

Article In this article, Bruno Maçães discusses the Metaverse. He explains the technical specifications needed to support the Metaverse, imagines the user...
The Moral Complexities of Working With Julian Assange

Podcast From the podcast description: Many have considered Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, to be a hero of the free speech movement...
The Morality of Whistle-Blowing

Article From the article description: Computer scientists, like other professionals, may find a conflict between their loyalties and their obligation to...
The New Age of Surveillance

Article In this article, the author discusses how the emergence of the Internet of Things is ushering in a new age...
The New Era of Corporate Censorship

Article This blog post discusses the situation of Cloudflare removing The Daily Stormer's account. The author argues that tech companies deciding what...
The Newly Reintroduced Phrack Issue 70

Article This article describes Phrack Magazine's comeback in 2021. Phrack Magazine is an online hacker magazine. This article describes how issues of...
The Noncompete Clause Gets a Closer Look

Article In this article, Lauren Weber talks about Biden’s executive order which asks FTC to limit the use of agreements that keep workers...
The Perils of Meritocracy

Article In this article, Garber discusses meritocracy. It’s one of the most loved ideas in American life, but she argues that it should...
The Python Code of Conduct

Article In this article, the former director and vice chairman of the Python Software Foundation outlines a code of conduct for...
The Reality of Developer Burnout

Article In this article, Kenneth Reitz shares his experience of software developer burnout and outlines mechanisms he put in place to...
The Real White Fragility: Does the White Upper Class Feel Exhausted and Oppressed by Meritocracy?

Article In this article, the author examines the question: does the white upper class feel exhausted and oppressed by meritocracy?
There's an Automation Crisis Underway Right Now, It's Just Mostly Invisible

Article This article describes the results of a research study on workplace automation’s impact on the individual worker. While the study...
The Return of Anonymous

Article This article tells the story of the return of the hacking and activist group Anonymous. In 2012 Anonymous reached the height...
These 6 tech companies have made the controversial decision to try to operate in China, where the government can demand social media posts be removed or search results be censored

Article This article outlines six different ways tech companies have censored content in order to operate in China amidst strict Chinese Internet...
The Secret History of Women in Coding

Article In this article, Clive Thompson recounts the history of women in coding, looking at many different female pioneers in the field.
The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It

Article This article discusses the controversial face recognition technology company Clearview AI. The article details how Clearview AI was founded, how...
The Terrifying Power of Internet Censors

Article This article discusses the situation in which Cloudflare terminated The Daily Stormer's account. The author proposes that this event is a...
The Trolley, the Bull Bar, and Why Engineers Should Care About the Ethics of Autonomous Cars

Academic Paper This academic paper has the following abstract: "Everyone agrees that autonomous cars ought to save lives. Even if the cars do...
The Trolls Are Winning the Internet, Technologists Say

Article In this article, Adrienne LaFrance describes how Internet trolls shape discourse online. LaFrance notes that the current solutions will push...
The United States Isn't Doomed to Lose the Information Wars

Article In this article, Doowan Lee discusses the ways China and Russia have launched disinformation attacks online and suggests a few...
The US System for "Skilled" Migrants is Broken

Article In this article, the author provides an overview of the H1-B Visa, explains why it was created, and describes some...
The WeWork Documentary Explores a Decade of Delusion

Article In this article, Lizzie Widdicombe summarizes the documentary “WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn." Widdicombe provides...
The WIRED Guide to Net Neutrality

Article This article provides a overview of the struggle to maintain net neutrality. Both the history of net neutrality and the future...
The Woke Meritocracy

Article In this article, the author discusses how telling the right stories about overcoming oppression in the right way became a...
The Woman Bringing Civility to Open Source Projects

Article In this article, Coraline Ada Ehmke is featured as "the woman bringing civility to open source projects". Ehmke is the principal...
The Work-Family Imbalance

Article In this article, Anand Iyer discusses the importance of prioritizing work-family life balance, especially for fathers. Iyer presents research that...
The World Needs Deepfake Experts to Stem This Chaos

Article This article describes a situation in Myanmar in which a political prisoner's confession video was accused as being a deepfake because...
‘The World’s Biggest Terrorist Has a Pikachu Bedspread’

Article This article tells the story of Reality Winner, an American Whistleblower who was sentenced for leaking a government report about Russian...
This researcher programmed bots to fight racism on Twitter. It worked.

Article In this article, Kevin Munger describes an experiment he performed on Twitter to attempt to discourage users from using harassing...
Thoughts on Network Neutrality, the FCC, and the Future of Internet Governance

Article In this blog post, Matthew Prince, the CEO of Cloudflare, shares his thoughts on FCC regulations that regulate Internet Service Providers....
To catch a priest

Article In this article, the author speculates how cell phone data was used to demonstrate that Msgr. Jeffrey Burrill was using...
Trust the News? Lecture Slides

Lecture / slides In these lecture slides for the Ethical and Professional Issues course in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department, the following...
Twitter begins emailing the 677,775 Americans who took Russian election bait

Article This article details how Twitter emailed all users who interacted with accounts confirmed to be from the Russian troll farm that meddled...
Uber Video Shows the Kind of Crash Self-Driving Cars Are Made to Avoid

Article This article describes the video footage from an Uber-owned autonomous vehicle that hit and killed a pedestrian. From the video it...
Understanding Visual Memes: An Empirical Analysis of Text Superimposed on Memes Shared on Twitter

Academic Paper This academic paper has the following abstract: Visual memes have become an important mechanism through which ideologically potent and hateful...
Unix Use and Security From The Ground Up

Article This article written by the hacker The Prophet for textfiles.com about the security and uses of Unix. Hackers in the early 1990s would...
Unmasking Reddit's Violentacrez, The Biggest Troll on the Web

Article This article exposes the man behind the Reddit account Violentacrez. Up until this article was published, Violentacrez, a prominent Reddit...
U.S. House unanimously approves sweeping self-driving car measure

Article This article describes a unanimous approval by the US House of Representatives in 2017 to speed the deployment of self-driving cars...
US military must prepare for POW concerns in the deepfake era

Article This article describes the threat deepfakes present to prisoner of war situations. Previously, authoritarian regimes have tried to exploit American...
'Utterly horrifying': ex-Facebook insider says covert data harvesting was routine

Article In this article, we hear the concerns of Sandy Parakilas, a former Facebook employee who directly observed Facebook treating user...
UW professor: The information war is real, and we’re losing it

Article In this article, the author discusses Kate Starbird, a professor at the University of Washington, and her study of conspiracy theories...
Violent memes and messages surging on far-left social media, a new report finds

Article This article describes how memes incited violence on left-wing social media in the summer of 2020 after the killing of George...
Virtualized Horror Lecture Slides

Lecture / slides Slides for Lecture 16 of Ethical and Professional Issues in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department. The learning goals for...
Virtue and Technology (part 1) Lecture Slides

Lecture / slides In these lecture slides, the Virtue Ethics framework is introduced as a framework for evaluating ethical issues in technology. These...
Virtue and Technology (part 2) Lecture Slides

Lecture / slides In these lecture slides, Paul Blaschko and Sam Kennedy give a guest lecture to Walter Scheirer's Ethical and Professional Issues...
Visa Rejections for Tech Workers Spike Under Trump

Article In this article, the author assesses the impact of the stricter H-1B Visa policies enacted under former President Trump. The author follows...
Walter Scheirer Interviews Kevin Bowyer

Video In this video, Dr. Walter Scheirer Interviews facial recognition and biometrics expert Dr. Kevin Bowyer about the ethics of facial...
Walter Scheirer Interviews Kirsten Martin

Video In this video, Prof. Walter Scheirer (Computer Science, Notre Dame) interviews Dr. Kristen Martin, expert on technology ethics and privacy,...
Walter Scheirer Interviews Ron Metoyer

Video In this video, Prof. Walter Scheirer (Computer Science, University of Notre Dame) interviews Dr. Ron Metoyer, Professor of Computer Science...
Warez: The Infrastructure and Aesthetics of Piracy

Book This book is written by Martin Paul Eve, a Professor of Literature, Technology and Publishing, about the Warez Scene and community. This...
We Are Legion - The Story of the Hacktivists

Video In this video clip from the documentary "We Are Legion," 4Chan's influence on Internet culture and trolling is described. The impact...
We Are Legion The Story of the Hacktivists

Video This video is a documentary directed by Brian Knappenberger that gives a detailed look at the beginnings of hacktivist group `Anonymous', and how they...
We desperately need a way to defend against online propaganda

Article This article describes how fake news spreads on social media, why "not feeding the trolls" isn't a sufficient solution, and why...
‘We Got To Be Cool About This‘: An Oral History of the L0pht, Part 1

Article This article provides an overview of how the influential hacking group L0pht formed in the 90s. The article tells the story...
Welcome to the Age of Privacy Nihilism

Article In this article, Ian Bogost provides an overview of the history of business intelligence. While the uncannily-appropriate nature of the targeted...
We tried the AI software companies like Goldman Sachs and Unilever use to analyze job applicants

Video In this video, Business Insider explores HireVue, a new AI technology for screening job applicants. The video explains how HireVue...
What Happens When Employers Can Read Your Facial Expressions?

Article This article outlines the risks of facial recognition technology. The authors outline three arguments that those against facial recognition technology...
What happens when we work non-stop

Article In this article, José Luis Peñarredonda discusses the experience of overworked workers, despite overwhelming evidence that working a healthy number of hours increases...
What is an H-1B Visa?

Video This video explains what an H-1B Visa is, its history, and critical opinions of H1-B visas.
Whence and W(h)ither Technology Ethics

Book The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Technology gives readers a view into this increasingly vital and urgently needed domain of...
Where Do I Want To Work? Lecture Slides

Lecture / slides In these lecture slides from the Ethical and Professional Issues course in the Computer Science and Engineering department at Notre Dame,...
Who controls the Internet?

Article In this article, it attempts to answer the question "Who owns the internet". Decentralization means the Internet is controlled by...
Who Spewed That Abuse? Anonymous Yik Yak App Isn’t Telling

Article This article discusses the social media app Yik Yak. The article discusses how Yik Yak was founded on the principles of...
Who Watches the Watchers? Lecture Slides

Lecture / slides Slides for Lecture 23 of Ethical and Professional Issues in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department. In this lecture,...
Why Are Young People Pretending to Love Work

Article In this article, Griffith explores the phenomenon of "workaholism" in younger generations. She argues that this culture benefits those in...
Why Cloudflare Let an Extremist Stronghold Burn

Article This article highlights one example of the tricky balance between allowing free speech on the Internet while mitigating hateful content. Cloudflare...
Why Doesn’t Silicon Valley Hire Black Coders?

Article In this article, Vauhini Vara addresses the lack of representation of black coders at Google and why this occurs, looking specifically at...
Why Edward Snowden Is a Hero

Article In this article, the author expresses their opinion on why Edward Snowden is a hero. The article describes what Snowden's...
Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar

Article In this article, Steve Secklow investigates why Facebook is failing to curb the spread of hate speech against ethnic minorities...
Why I Put My Wife's Career First

Article In this article, Andrew Moravcsik, husband of Anne-Marie Slaughter (who wrote this article about working mothers) describes his experience as a...
Why It Pays to Work Hard: Ted Talk

Video In this video, Richard St. John proposes a simple shift in attitude to turn mediocre into incredible. Nothing comes easy, and...
Why Millennials Are Leaving Six-Figure Tech Jobs

Video From the video description: "Tech jobs are known to have some of the most lavish benefits and perks, not to...
Why Silicon Valley is Embracing Universal Basic Income

Article This article describes how Universal Basic Income (UBI) works, and how it fits into Silicon Valley’s agenda. While some critics...
Why Software is Eating the World

Article In this article, Marc Andreessen argues that the rapid growth of tech companies will not lead to a dangerous new...
Why Tech Is the Leading Industry on Parental Leave

Article In this article, Bourree Lam profiles Etsy's updated parental leave policy from 12 weeks to 26 weeks. Lam cites two main...
Why Tech Leadership Has a Bigger Race Than Gender Problem

Article In this article, the findings of a new study from Ascend Leadership that there may be an overrepresentation of Asians in tech—but...
Why the Future Doesn't Need Us

Article From the article summary: "Bill Joy, cofounder and and chief scientist of Sun Microsystems, argues that the technologies of the future...
Why the Open Code of Conduct Isn't For Me

Article In this article, the author shares his opinion on GitHub’s new Open Code of Conduct. Specifically, the author critiques the...
Why the STEM gender gap is overblown

Article In this article, Denise Cummins explains that although women are just as capable of performing in STEM fields as men, this...
Why The U.S. Government And Big Tech Disagree On Encryption

Video This video has the following description: Encryption takes data like a text message or email and converts it into code to...
Why Using an Ad Blocker Is Stealing

Article In this article, the author discusses why using an ad blocker is stealing. The author argues that using an ad...
Why Women Still Can't Have It All

Article In this article, Anne-Marie Slaughter draws from her own professional experience to explain why it is incredibly hard for women...
Why You Should Embrace Surveillance, Not Fight It

Article From the article description: "The internet is a tracking and monitoring machine. We will ceaselessly self-track and be tracked. We’re expanding...
Workism is Making Americans Miserable

Article In this article, Derek Thompson outlines the new "workism" phenomenon. Despite predictions from 20th century intellectuals that Americans in the...
Writing Reflection 00: Ethical Frameworks

Writing Reflection The first writing reflection assignment for Ethical and Professional Issues in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department. The assignment asks...
Writing Reflection 01: Jobs in the Tech Industry

Writing Reflection The second writing assignment for Ethical and Professional Issues in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department. The assignment asks...
Writing Reflection 02: What does success look like?

Writing Reflection In this writing reflection, students in Ethical and Professional Issues (in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department) are encouraged...
Writing Reflection 03: Valuable Time and Good People

Writing Reflection In this writing reflection from the Ethical and Professional Issues course in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department, the students are encouraged...
Writing Reflection 04: Social Media and the Internet

Writing Reflection In this writing reflection, students in the Ethical and Professional Issues course in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department...
Writing Reflection 05: Exposure of Anonymity?

Writing Reflection In this writing reflection for the Ethical and Professional Issues course in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department, students are...
Writing Reflection 06: The Very Weird Internet

Writing Reflection In this writing reflection, students in the Ethical and Professional Issues course in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department...
Writing Reflection 07: You've Been Canceled!

Writing Reflection The eighth writing reflection for Ethical and Professional Issues in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department. The writing reflection encourages...
Writing Reflection 08: Artificial Perception

Writing Reflection The ninth writing assignment for Ethical and Professional Issues in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department.This assignment encourages students to...
Writing Reflection 09: Face the Facts of AI

Writing Reflection The tenth writing reflection for Ethical and Professional Issues in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department. This assignment asks...
Writing Reflection 10: Hackers and Leakers

Writing Reflection In this writing assignment for Ethical and Professional Issues in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering department, students are asked...
Xbox's new Code of Conduct: yes to "get wrecked," "potato aim," no to hate

Article In this article the author discusses Xbox's Code of Conduct, and in particular discusses Xbox's distinction between trash talk (acceptable) and harassment...
Young Chinese Bemoan Rat Race With Tongue-in-Cheek Memes

Article This article describes Chinese memes about the country’s work culture that surfaced during the bleak job market of the COVID-19...
Your Interview With AI

Article This article discusses HireVue, an AI-based job hiring platform. The article discusses the ethical concerns surrounding HireVue and HireVue's responses to...
You Won't Believe What Obama Says In This Video!

Video In this video, it appears as if Former President Barack Obama is delivering an important message. However, as the video...