Cybersecurity and Computer Crimes

March 31

Last week we looked at hacking as a form of social protest. This week, we take a closer look at the more sinister side of hacking, and the various responses to it. Hacking at its heart involves modifying or intruding upon another’s system. But not all intrusion is socially harmful, and writing laws against hacking have a troubling (and at times, tragic) history of being misused. How big a threat is hacking, really? How should systems respond to hacking? What, if anything, should be the role of government? In what ways can we govern those who don’t consider code to be a governing influence?

Readings

Cybersecurity

• Brian Krebs, "The Scrap Value of a Hacked PC (infographic)," Oct 2012
• Bill Hardekopf, "The Big Data Breaches of 2014, Forbes, January 13, 2015
• Liana Baker and Jim Finkle, "Sony Playstation suffers massive data breach," Reuters, April 26, 2011
• Sean Gallagher, "Hackers Promise 'Christmas Present' Sony Pictures Won't Like," Ars Technica, December 15, 2015
• Peter Bright, "US Government Fingers North Korea as the Sony Hackers," Ars Technica, December 17 2014

Computer Crimes

• United States Department of Justice, Prosecuting Computer Crimes (read pages 1-11: Introduction to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and Key Definitions)

• Sarah Laskow, Reporting, Or Illegal Hacking

Case studies

• Wikipedia, Operation Payback

• Wikipedia, Project Chanology

• Andy Sellars, The Impact of "Aaron's Law" on Aaron Swartz's Case

• David Kravets, Appeals Court Reverses Hacker/Troll "Weev" Conviction and Sentence

• Jeff Ward-Bailey, Hacking Tool Threatens Healthcare.gov Site

Optional Readings

• Intelligence Squared Debate: "The Cyberwar Threat Has Been Grossly Exaggerated" (an Oxford-style debate with Marc Rotenberg, Bruce Schneier, Mike McConnell, and Jonathan Zittrain; watch the video of the debate)

• Andrea Matwyshyn, Hacking Speech: Informational Speech and the First Amendment

• Nicole Perlroth, Hackers in China Attacked The Times for Last 4 Months (New York Times)

• TorrentFreak, Pirate Parties Use Influence to Halt Anonymous’ Operation Payback

• Christopher Soghoian, The Growing Trade in Software Security Exploits

Class Discussion

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