Cyber Flash Points (LAW-795CY-001)
Jennifer Daskal, Laura Denardis
Meets: 02:00 PM - 04:50 PM (T) - Yuma - Room YT16
Enrolled: 14 / Limit: 14
Notices
This course is cross listed as COMM-696-001.
Description
The most challenging and consequential problems of the contemporary era are now mediated by conflicts over Internet governance. Every sector of society, industry, and the political sphere is dependent upon digital technologies to function, but many of the global debates determining conditions of speech, privacy, the pace of innovation, and national security in this environment are completely unsettled. What counts as personal privacy in an era in which technology business models depend upon pervasive big data collection to generate advertising revenue and national security and law enforcement seek expansive access to consumer data? How are social media companies navigating problems like hate speech and foreign influence in democratic elections? Can cybersecurity problems stemming from massive consumer data breaches, ransomware, and politically motivated cyber conflict among nation states be addressed in order to ensure societal trust in economic and social systems? Rapidly emerging technologies like the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and cryptocurrency are only escalating the stakes of these Internet control struggles.
All of these problems share several features: Internet technologies are cross-border and do not correspond to national borders and laws; decisions by the private sector as to how technology is designed and operated have profound implications for individual right and security; and many of the most important public interest areas of our time are still unsettled as society moves from an information society to world in which all of life – material as well as virtual – is digitally embedded. This weekly seminar will allow students to become well versed in the growing body of interdisciplinary literature and theory around global cyber governance. Each class will open with a 15-minute flash talk explaining how the technical architecture of the Internet works. The seminar’s specific objectives are three-fold: 1) to help students understand the technical infrastructure of the Internet and the distributed ecosystem of actors and systems that now control it; 2) to provide students with in-depth knowledge of some of the most critical contemporary public policy debates over Internet governance; 3) to allow students to develop their own evidence-based normative positions on how major problems in cyber governance should be addressed. The course is open to law students, LLMs, and graduate students in communications, SIS, and computer science, and others with permission of the professors.Textbooks and Other Materials
The textbook information on this page was provided by the instructor. Students should use this information when considering purchases from the AU Campus Store or other vendors. Students may check to determine if books are currently available for purchase online.
First Class Readings
Not available at this time.