COMP7004 Class 07.2 & 07.3

We watched a documentary about Facebook content moderation policies and the work of moderators at CPL in Dublin.

Afterward we had an interesting discussion about this issues raised. We were not impressed by Facebook's policies.

COMP7004 Class 07.1

We continued our look at the GDPR. We spent a lot of time discussing the right to be forgotten.

COMP7004 Class 06.2 &06.3

We watched the Nosedive episode of Black Mirror.

We discussed some of the issues it raised.

We watched a video bout the Social Credit system in China.

We discussed some of the issues it raised.

COMP7004 Class 06.1

We continued our trawl through the interesting parts of the GDPR

COMP7004 Class 05.4

This was an extra class.

But only one student turned up so I called it off.

COMP7004 Class 05.2 & 05.3

We watched the Arkangel episode of Black Mirror.

We discussed a number of issues raised in the episodes: the con flight between child protection and privacy, tracking, filtering.

I asked students to look at the activity Google had recorded for them using myactivity.google.com

COMP7004 Class 05.1

We discussed the DDR and how people in different countries can have different levels of sensitivity to potential abuses of surveillance technology.

We continued our look at privacy and began our examination of the GRPR.

COMP7004 Class 04.3.& 04.4

We watched Das Leben Der Anderen (The Lives of Others). This movie depicts life in the final years of the DDR (East Germany).  We will discuss this in the next class.

Students might also find Deutschland '83 interesting. Although some people have criticised this for presenting too light hearted a view of life in the DDR. It is available to steam for free at Channel4.com

COMP7004 Class 04.2

We looked at data protection principles very briefly. We will look at data protection again.

We looked at the sources of law in Ireland. In particular we saw the difference between a Directive and a Regulation.

COMP7004 Class 04.1 (extra class)

We looked some more at privacy and discussed whether we value yo it for its intrinsic or extrinsic properties.  We settled on extrinsic.

We discussed the video we watch last week about credit rating agencies and proposed some solutions to the problems raised in the video. Most of the solutions look a lot like the rules we have in Europe.

COMP7004 Class 03.2 & 03.3

We discussed codes of ethics some more and talked about the computer profession's obligations to society at large.

We discussed whistle blowing and considered some criteria for when it would be acceptable.


I asked students to define privacy.

We watched a video about Credit Scores.

COMP7004 Class 03.1

Students got into small groups and each was given a professional ethical problem to resolve. We discussed the possible solutions.

I was surprised by the level of agreement.

COMP7004 Class 02.3

We looked at the Professional Codes of Conduct for the IEEE, ACM, and ICS.

Students broke into groups and examined one of the case studies in the ACM code.

COMP7004 Class 02.1 & 02.2

We discussed the issues raised in the Would You Kill the Big Guy radio programmes.  Most students listened to it like I asked. But there were one or two spoofers who pretended that they did.

I asked the students to do the Moral Machine in groups.

We looked at other sources of morlaity.

We looked at logical arguments and common fallacies.

COMP7004 Class 01.3

We looked at Intuitionism and Consequentialism.

We looked at moral machine.mit.edu

I asked students to listen to Would You Kill the Big Guy before the next class.  Part I Part II

COMP7004 Class 01.1 & 2

I introduced myself and the module.  I talked abut the assessment and about the kinds of topics the module will cover.

We looked at sources of morality.  We discussed supernaturalism and the extent to which is is (not) useful in CyberEthics.

COMP7004 Class 12.3

No students turned up. 

In light of this week’s attendance there seems to be little point in scheduling classes for next week. If anyone has any questions or issues please email me and we can arrange to meet.

COMP7004 Class 12.2

No students showed up

COMP7004 Class 12.1

Nobody turned up.

COMP7004 Class 11.3

At the start of class I asked if anyone had any questions on foot of the exam. There were none.

We watched Black Mirror: Arkangel

Only one student was prepared sit and watch it. Everyone else found one screen did not provide sufficient stimulation.

We had an interesting discussion afterwards.