Coursetexts
Spring 2025 | Yale University
Twenty-first century societies are faced with both threats and opportunities that combine sophisticated computation with politics and international relations in critical ways. Examples include online disinformation campaigns, the tension between online privacy and lawful surveillance, AI regulation and transparency, net neutrality, and digital copyright. CPSC 310 examines some of the political challenges wrought by massive increases in the power of information and communication technologies and the potential for citizens and governments to harness those technologies to solve problems.
General
Background (Internet Design, Cryptography and Security)
January 14, 2025: Lecture 1 (Feigenbaum & Monteiro)
Topic: Administrative Matters and “Teaser”
January 16, 2025: Lecture 2 (Feigenbaum)
Topic: Internet Background
Reading Assignment:
[\o] David D. Clark, “The Design Philosophy of the DARPA Internet Protocols,” ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review, Vol. 18, No. 4, pp. 106–114, August 1988.
[\o] J. H. Saltzer, D. P. Reed, and D. D. Clark, “End-To-End Arguments in System Design,” ACM Transactions on Computer Systems, Vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 277–288, November 1984.
January 21, 2025: Lecture 3 (Feigenbaum)
Topic: Internet and Cryptography & Security Background
Reading Assignment:
[\o] Marjory S. Blumenthal and David D. Clark, “Rethinking the Design of the Internet: The End-to-End Arguments vs. The Brave New World,” ACM Transactions on Internet Technology, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 70–109, August 2001.
[\o] David Wagner et al. (n.d.). Security Principles. In Computer Security (Chapter 1).
[\o] David Wagner et al. (n.d.). Introduction to Cryptography. In Computer Security (Chapter 5).
[\o] David Wagner et al. (n.d.). Symmetric-Key Cryptography. In Computer Security (Chapter 6).
[\o] David Wagner et al. (n.d.). Cryptographic Hashes. In Computer Security (Chapter 7).
Optional: [\o] A more detailed version of the material in the “Security Principles” chapter above can be found in Matt Bishop, Chapter 1 (Introduction) of Computer Security: Art and Science, Pearson Education, Inc., 2019.
January 23, 2025: Lecture 4 (Feigenbaum & Monteiro)
Topic: Cryptography & Security Background
Reading Assignment:
[\c] Whitfield Diffie and Martin E. Hellman, “New Directions in Cryptography,” IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, Vol. IT-22, No. 6, pp. 644–654, November 1976. (Sections I, II, III, and VII are required; the rest optional.)
[\c] Arvind Narayanan, “What Happened to the Crypto Dream?, Part 1,” IEEE Security & Privacy, Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 75–76, March/April 2013.
[\c] Daniel J. Solove, “The Nothing to Hide Argument,” Chapter 2 of Nothing to Hide: The False Tradeoff Between Privacy and Security, Yale University Press, 2011.
Topic 1: Privacy
January 28, 2025: Lecture 5 (Monteiro)
Topic: Privacy Overview
Reading Assignment:
[\c] Neil M. Richards, “What Privacy Is,” pp. 17–34 of Why Privacy Matters, Oxford University Press. Published online November 2021; in print March 2022.
January 30, 2025: Lecture 6 (Monteiro)
Topic: Data Privacy Online
Reading Assignment:
[\c] Solon Barocas and Helen Nissenbaum, “Big Data’s End Run Around Anonymity and Consent,” Chapter 2 in Privacy, Big Data, and the Public Good: Frameworks for Engagement, Cambridge University Press, 2014.
February 4, 2025: Lecture 7 (Feigenbaum)
Topic: Encryption vs. Lawful Surveillance, Part 1
Reading Assignment:
[\o] Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes, “Apple is selling you a phone, not civil liberties,” February 18, 2016.
[\o] Steven M. Bellovin et al., “Op-ed: Ray Ozzie’s crypto proposal—a dose of technical reality,” Ars Technica, May 7, 2018.
[\o] Joan Feigenbaum, “Encryption and Surveillance: Why the Law-Enforcement Access Question Will Not Just Go Away,” Communications of the ACM, Vol. 62, No. 5, pp. 27–29, May 2019.
February 6, 2025: Lecture 8 (Monteiro)
Topic: Encryption vs. Lawful Surveillance, Part 2
Reading Assignment:
[\o] Hal Abelson et al., “Keys Under Doormats: Mandating Insecurity by Requiring Government Access to All Data and Communications,” Journal of Cybersecurity, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 69–79, 2015.
[\o] Hal Abelson et al., “Bugs in Our Pockets: The Risks of Client-Side Scanning,” Journal of Cybersecurity, Vol. 10, Issue 1, pp. 1–18, 2024.
February 11, 2025: Lecture 9 (Monteiro & Feigenbaum)
Topic: Privacy, Surveillance, & Intermediaries
Viewing & Reading Assignment:
[\o] Michael Veale, YouTube video: “Data is Dead,” February 2024.
[\o] Alan Z. Rozenshtein, “Surveillance Intermediaries,” Stanford Law Review, Vol. 70, pp. 99–189, January 2018. (Intro, Sections I, II, and IV required.)
[\o] Joseph Menn, “U.K. Orders Apple to Let It Spy on Users’ Encrypted Accounts,” Washington Post, February 7, 2025.
February 13, 2025: Lecture 10 (Feigenbaum)
Topic: Anonymity
Reading Assignment:
[\o] Gary T. Marx, “Identity and Anonymity,” in J. Caplan and J. Torpey, Documenting Individual Identity, Princeton University Press, 2001.
[\o] David Wagner et al., Chapter 39, “Anonymity and Tor,” in Computer Security.
Optional: [\o] A more detailed and precise explanation of the material in Chapter 39 above can be found in the second and third sections (entitled “Onion Routing and Tor” and “Attacks on Onion Routing”) of this article.
Topic 2: Platforms (esp. Social Media)
February 18, 2025: Lecture 11 (Monteiro)
Topic: Introduction to Platform Governance
Reading Assignment:
[\o] Jack Balkin, “How to Regulate (and Not Regulate) Social Media,” Journal of Free Speech Law, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 71–96, 2021.
[\o] Kate Klonick, “The New Governors,” Harvard Law Review, Vol. 131, pp. 1598–1670, April 2018. (Pages 1625–1657 required.)
[\o] Tarleton Gillespie, Custodians of the Internet: Platform Content Moderation, and the Hidden Decisions that Shape Social Media, Yale University Press, June 2018. PDF version available here. (Chapters 1, 2, and 4 are required; the rest optional.)
February 20, 2025: Lecture 12 (Feigenbaum)
Topic: Misinformation and Polarization
Reading Assignment:
[\o] Christopher A. Bail et al., “Exposure to Opposing Views on Social Media Can Increase Political Polarization,” PNAS, Vol. 115, No. 37, pp. 9216–9221, September 2018.
[\c] Killian L. McLoughlin et al., “Misinformation Exploits Outrage to Spread Online,” Science, Vol. 386, Issue 6725, pp. 991–996, November 2024.
[\o] Rachel Kleinfeld, Polarization, Democracy, and Political Violence in the United States: What the Research Says, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 2023. (Summary, Introduction (pp. 1–7), “Media Bubbles” (pp. 25–27), and Conclusion (pp. 40–46) are required; the rest is optional.)
February 25, 2025: Lecture 13 (Monteiro)
Topic: Recommender Systems
Reading Assignment:
[\o] Robert Gorwa, Reuben Binns, & Christian Katzenbach, “Algorithmic Content Moderation: Technical and Political Challenges in the Automation of Platform Governance,” Big Data & Society, Vol. 7, Issue 1, pp. 1–15, Jan–June 2020.
[\o] Arvind Narayanan, Understanding Social Media Recommendation Algorithms, Knight Institute, March 9, 2023.
[\o] Tom Cunningham et al., “What We Know About Using Non-Engagement Signals in Content Ranking,” arXiv preprint arXiv:2402.06831, 2024.
March 4, 2025: Lecture 14 (Feigenbaum)
Topic: Accountability: Technical vs. Political
Reading Assignment:
[\o] Deven R. Desai & Joshua A. Kroll, “Trust But Verify: A Guide to Algorithms and the Law,” Harvard Journal of Law & Technology, Vol. 31, No. 1, Winter 2018.
[\o] Aleksandra Kuczerawy & Jef Ausloos, “From Notice-and-Takedown to Notice-and-Delist: Implementing Google Spain,” Colorado Technology Law Journal, Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 219–258, 2016. (Pages 220–246 required.)
March 6, 2025: Lecture 15 (Feigenbaum)
Topic: Balance of Power Between Users & Platforms, Part 1
Reading Assignment:
[\o] Ayelet Gordon-Tapiero, Alexandra Wood, and Katrina Ligett, “The Case for Establishing a Collective Perspective to Address the Harms of Platform Personalization,” in Proceedings of the 2022 ACM Symposium on Computer Science and Law
[\o] Caleb Malchik and Joan Feigenbaum, “Toward User Control over Information Access: A Sociotechnical Approach,” in Proceedings of the 2022 New Security Paradigms Workshop. (Read Abstract, Sec. 1, and Sec. 3 in full. Skim Sec. 2, paying attention to Subsec. 2.4.)
March 25, 2025: Lecture 16 (Monteiro)
Topic: Balance of Power Between Users & Platforms, Part 2
Reading/Listening Assignment:
[\c] Francis Fukuyama, “Making the Internet Safe for Democracy,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 32, No. 2, pp. 37–44, 2021.
[\o] Mike Masnick, “Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech.” Free Speech Futures. New York: Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, August 21, 2019
Topic 3: AI Governance & Conclusion
March 27, 2025: Lecture 17 (Monteiro)
Topic: What is AI, and What is AI Governance?