CS305: Social, Ethical, and Legal
Implications of Computing
Nguyen V. Vu
Summer 2025
Outline
◼ Teaching Staff
◼ Course Description
◼ Learning Objectives
◼ Course Requirements
◼ Grading
◼ Academic Integrity
◼ Class Schedule
◼ Introduction: History of Computing
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Teaching Staff
◼ Instructor
❑ Nguyen V. Vu
◼ FIT, HCMUS
◼ Email: nvu@fit.hcmus.edu.vn
◼ Phone: 090-817-5957
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Course Description
◼ Introduce students important social and
professional issues related to information
technology
◼ Provide opportunities for students to discuss real-
world situations where social, ethical, and legal
implications are relevant to the IT profession
◼ Prerequisites
❑ None
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Topics
◼ Topics covered
❑ History of computing
❑ Ethical Theories
❑ Networked Communications
❑ Intellectual Property in the Digital Age
❑ Privacy and Surveillance
❑ Computer Reliability
❑ Introduction to AI Ethics
❑ Algorithmic Bias and Fairness
❑ Automation and Globalization
❑ Emerging Technologies and Ethical Implications
◼ Text books
❑ Required: Ethics for the Information Age (9th ed.), Michael Quinn.
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Books
Ethics for the Information Age 7th
9th Edition – Michael Quinn
Phải trái đúng sai – Michael
Sandel
6
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Learning Objectives
◼ By the end of the class, students will
❑ Recognize social, ethical, and legal issues related to computing.
❑ Understand major ethical theories and apply them to reason social,
ethical, and legal issues related to computing.
❑ Understand basic legal principles that may be applied to address legal
issues.
❑ Recognize their responsibilities to adhere to the professional and ethical
standards.
❑ Develop argumentation and presentation skills through debates and
presentations on topics related to social, ethical, and legal implications
of computing.
❑ Identify and evaluate ethical issues in AI applications, including bias,
privacy, and autonomy.
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Course Requirements
◼ Students are required to attend all classes
❑ ≥70% class attendance is required for Paper and Presentation
assignments
◼ Moodle used for material distribution and communication
◼ Questions beneficial to both the questioner and others
should be posted on Moodle’s forum or Facebook’s
group
◼ Students encouraged to ask questions in class, via
forum, email, or in-person
◼ Late submission policy
❑ 15% grade reduction for each day late
❑ Zero grade for 4 or more days late
❑ Exceptions are given for certain cases, e.g., illness
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Grading
◼ Grade Distribution
❑ Lightning presentations 20%
❑ Discussions and in-class activities 20%
❑ Quizzes 15%
❑ Final presentation 20%
❑ Final exam 25%
❑ Bonus <=10%
◼ Grade in the 1000th scale will be scaled into the
10th scale
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Discussion 1
◼ Assume that you have an essay to submit within
today: a discussion on the Internet of Things
◼ You find hard to write its definition. But luckily,
ChatGPT comes to the recue. You can use
ChatGPT to generate the content.
◼ It has a perfect definition of the IoT
◼ What would you do?
◼ Form groups of 5 each, discuss and present the
group’s ideas in front of class
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Academic Integrity
◼ Students are prohibited from copying
❑ from classmates, friends even if allowed
❑ from the Internet without proper citation (see below)
◼ Students are prohibited from allowing others to copy
◼ Other kinds of cheating and plagiarizing
◼ Some examples of plagiarism and cheating
❑ copying someone else’s work,
❑ giving your work to others,
❑ presenting someone else’s ideas,
❑ discussing with others during an exam,
❑ copying text from sources without proper attribution,
❑ using unauthorized materials
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Academic Integrity (cont’d)
◼ How to cite sources properly?
❑ If copying verbatim, put copied sentences/phrases in the
double quotes
❑ If rephrasing a source, put a reference to the source
◼ If the academic integrity violated, serious measures
will be taken
❑ 1st violation: zero grade for the assignment violating
❑ 2nd violation and more: students will be failed the class and
report to the school
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Citation Examples
◼ Verbatim citation
“It is a matter of some urgency that we as a research community
define and agree reporting protocols and methods for comparison” [1]
◼ Rephrasing
Shepperd believes that the research community needs to define a
reporting protocols and methods for comparison [1]
◼ Reference
[1] Shepperd M, "Software project economics: a roadmap", Future of
Software Engineering (FOSE'07), 2007
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Class Schedule
◼ See the schedule in Syllabus for detail
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Questions?
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Discussion 2
◼ What is the basis for your daily decision?
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A Brief History of Computing
Adapted from Quinn’s Slides
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A Brief History of Computing
◼ Introduction
◼ Milestones in computing
◼ Milestones in networking
◼ Milestones in information storage and retrieval
◼ Information technology issues
◼ Discussion
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Information Age
◼ Characterized by unprecedented access to
information
◼ Catalysts
❑ Low-cost computers
❑ High-speed communication networks
◼ Examples of advances in past two decades
❑ Cell phones
❑ Email
❑ World Wide Web
❑ Social networks
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Technology and Values
◼ Dynamic between people, technology
❑ People adopt technology
❑ Technology changes society
◼ Different ways people are affected by technology
❑ Physical changes (e.g., laptops)
❑ Psychological changes (e.g., cell phones)
◼ While technologies can solve problems, they create
new problems
❑ Automobile
❑ Refrigerator
❑ Low-cost international communication
❑ Internet abuse
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Control over New Technologies
◼ People can control whether to adopt new
technology
❑ Nuclear power moratorium in United States
❑ Nuclear power advances in rest of world
❑ Censorship, firewall
◼ People can influence rate at which technologies
are developed
❑ Intellectual property laws
❑ Tax structure
❑ Other regulations
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Aids to Manual Calculating
◼ Tablet
❑ Clay, wax tablets (ancient times)
❑ Slates (late Middle Ages)
❑ Paper tablets (19th century)
◼ Abacus
❑ Rods or wires in rectangular frame
❑ Lines drawn on a counting board
◼ Mathematical tables
❑ Tables of logarithms (17th century)
❑ Income tax tables (today)
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Social Change → Market for Calculators
◼ Gilded Age (late 19th century America)
❑ Rapid industrialization
❑ Economic expansion
❑ Concentration of corporate power
◼ New, larger corporations
❑ Multiple layers of management
❑ Multiple locations
❑ Needed up-to-date, comprehensive, reliable, and
affordable information
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Punched Card Tabulation
◼ Punched cards (late 19th century)
❑ One record per card
❑ Cards could be sorted into groups, allowing computation of
subtotals by categories
◼ Early adopters
❑ U.S. Bureau of the Census
❑ Railroads
❑ Retail organizations
❑ Heavy industries
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Tabulator → Data Processing Systems
◼ Data-processing system
❑ Receives input data
❑ Performs one or more calculations
❑ Produces output data
◼ Punched cards
❑ Stored input data and intermediate results
❑ Stored output
❑ Stored programs on most complicated systems
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Precursors of Commercial Computers
◼ Atanasoff-Berry Computer: vacuum tubes
◼ ENIAC: externally programmed with wires
◼ EDVAC: program stored in memory
◼ Small-Scale Experimental Machine: CRT memory
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First Commercial Computers
◼ Remington-Rand
❑ Completed UNIVAC in 1951
❑ Delivered to U.S. Bureau of the Census
❑ Predicted winner of 1952 Pres. election
◼ IBM
❑ Larger base of customers
❑ Far superior sales and marketing organization
❑ Greater investment in research and development
❑ Dominated mainframe market by mid-1960s
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Programming Languages
◼ Assembly language
❑ Symbolic representations of machine instructions
❑ Programs just as long as machine language programs
◼ FORTRAN
❑ First higher-level language (shorter programs)
❑ Designed for scientific applications
◼ COBOL
❑ U.S. Department of Defense standard
❑ Designed for business applications
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Time-Sharing Systems and BASIC
◼ Time-Sharing Systems
❑ Divide computer time among multiple users
❑ Users connect to computer via terminals
❑ Cost of ownership spread among more people
❑ Gave many more people access to computers
◼ BASIC
❑ Developed at Dartmouth College
❑ Simple, easy-to-learn programming language
❑ Popular language for teaching programming
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Transistor
◼ Replacement for vacuum tube
◼ Invented at Bell Labs (1948)
◼ Semiconductor
❑ Faster
❑ Cheaper
❑ More reliable
❑ More energy-efficient
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Integrated Circuit
◼ Semiconductor containing transistors, capacitors, and
resistors
◼ Invented at Fairchild Semiconductor and Texas
Instruments
◼ Advantages over parts they replaced
❑ Smaller
❑ Faster
❑ More reliable
❑ Less expensive
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IBM System/360
◼ Before System/360
❑ IBM dominated mainframe marked in 1960s
❑ IBM computers were incompatible
❑ Switch computers
❑ Rewrite programs
◼ System/360
❑ Series of 19 computers with varying levels of power
❑ All computers could run same programs
❑ Upgrade without rewriting programs
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Microprocessor
◼ Computer inside a single semiconductor chip
◼ Invented in 1970 at Intel
◼ Made personal computers practical
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Personal Computer
◼ Altair 8800
❑ Gates and Allen created BASIC interpreter
❑ Interpreter pirated at Homebrew Computer Club meeting
◼ Personal computers become popular
❑ Apple Computer: Apple II
❑ Tandy Corporation: TRS 80
◼ Developments draw businesses to personal computers
❑ Computer spreadsheet program: VisiCalc
❑ IBM launches IBM PC
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Milestones in Networking (1/2)
◼ Discoveries in electromagnetism (early 1800s)
◼ Telegraph (1844)
◼ Telephone (1876)
◼ Typewriter and teletype (1873, 1908)
◼ Radio (1895)
◼ Television (1927)
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Milestones in Networking (2/2)
◼ Remote computing (1940)
◼ ARPANET (1969)
◼ Email (1972)
◼ Internet (1983)
◼ NSFNET
◼ Broadband
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Telegraph (1844)
◼ U.S. government funded first line
❑ 40 miles from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore
❑ Built by Samuel Morse in 1843-1844
◼ Private networks flourished
❑ 12,000 miles of lines in 1850
❑ Transcontinental line in 1861 put Pony Express out of business
❑ 200,000 miles of lines by 1877
◼ Technology proved versatile
❑ Fire alarm boxes
❑ Police call boxes
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Telegraph (1876)
◼ Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922)
❑ Constructed harmonic telegraph
❑ Leveraged concept into first telephone
◼ Social impact of telephone
❑ Blurred public life / private life boundary
❑ Eroded traditional social hierarchies
❑ Reduced privacy
❑ Enabled first “online” communities
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Typewriter and Teletype
◼ Typewriter (1873)
❑ Individual production of “type set” documents
❑ Common in offices by 1890s
◼ Teletype (1908)
❑ Typewriter connected to telegraph line
❑ Popular uses
◼ Transmitting news stories
◼ Sending records of stock transactions
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Radio (1895)
◼ Pioneers
❑ Hertz creates electromagnetic waves
❑ Marconi invents radio
◼ First used in business
❑ Wireless telegraph
❑ Transmit voices
◼ Entertainment uses
❑ Suggested by Sarnoff
❑ Important entertainment medium by 1930s
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Television (1927)
◼ Became popular in 1950s
❑ Price fell dramatically
❑ Number of stations increased
◼ Social effects
❑ Worldwide audiences
❑ Networks strive to be first to deliver news
❑ Impact of incorrect information; e.g., 2000 presidential election
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ARPANET (1969)
◼ DoD creates ARPA in late 1950s
❑ ARPA = Advanced Research Projects Agency
◼ Licklider conceives of “Galactic Network”
◼ Decentralized design to improve survivability
◼ Packet-switching replaces circuit switching
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Email (1972)
◼ Creation
❑ Tomlinson at BBN writes software to send, receive email
messages
❑ Roberts creates email utility
◼ Current status
❑ One of world’s most important communication technologies
❑ Billions of messages sent in U.S. every day
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Internet (1983)
◼ Kahn conceives of open architecture networking
◼ Cerf and Kahn design TCP/IP protocol
◼ Internet: network of networks communicating using
TCP/IP
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Broadband
◼ Broadband
❑ High-speed Internet connection
❑ At least 10x faster than dial-up connection
❑ Enhanced by fiber optic networks
◼ South Korea
❑ World leader in broadband networking
❑ Three-quarters of homes have broadband connections
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Newspapers
◼ Newspapers: Stimulated free expression
◼ Governments responded
❑ Licensing
❑ Censorship
◼ Impact on American Revolution
❑ Newspapers helped unify colonies
❑ Swayed public opinion toward independence
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Hypertext
◼ Vannevar Bush envisions Memex (1945)
◼ Ted Nelson
❑ Coined word hypertext
❑ Proposed creation of Xanadu (1967)
◼ Douglas Engelbart
❑ Directed construction of NLS (oNLine System)
❑ Demonstrated windows, email, mouse, videoconferencing (1968)
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Graphical User Interface
◼ Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center)
❑ Alan Kay sees Doug Engelbart demo in 1968
❑ Alto personal computer (early 1970s)
❑ Bit-mapped display, keyboard, and mouse
◼ Apple Computer
❑ Steve Jobs visits Xerox PARC in 1979
❑ Macintosh (1984)
❑ Bit-mapped display, keyboard, and mouse
◼ Microsoft Windows (1990)
❑ Released in May 1990
❑ Quickly became dominant graphical user interface
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World Wide Web
◼ First browser built at CERN in Switzerland
❑ Tim Berners-Lee: WorldWideWeb (1990)
❑ Berners-Lee created Web protocols
❑ Protocols based on TCP/IP
◼ Later browsers
❑ Mosaic
❑ Netscape Navigator
❑ Netscape Mozilla
❑ Microsoft Internet Explorer
❑ Mozilla Firefox
❑ Google Chrome
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Search Engines
◼ Crawler-based engines (Google, AltaVista)
❑ Programs called spiders follow hyperlinks and visit millions of
Web pages
❑ System automatically constructs Web page database
◼ Human-assisted engines (Open Directory)
❑ Humans build Web page database
❑ Web page summaries more accurate
❑ Far fewer Web pages in database
◼ Hybrid systems (MSN Search)
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Generative AI
◼ Artificial Neural Networks
◼ Deep Learning
◼ Large Language Models
❑ Transformers architecture 2017
❑ GPT 2019
❑ ChatGPT 2022
❑ Gemini
❑ Grok
❑ DeepSeek
❑ Llama
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Information Technology
◼ Definition
❑ Devices used in creation, storage, manipulation, dissemination of
data, sound, and/or images
◼ Examples
❑ Computers, telephones, video cameras, MP3 players
◼ People making greater use of IT
❑ Costs keep falling
❑ Capabilities keep rising
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IT Issues (1/3)
◼ Email
❑ Easy way to keep in touch
❑ Spam has become a real problem
◼ Web
❑ Free access to huge amounts of information
❑ Harmful consequences of some sites
◼ CDs, MP3s
❑ Free or cheap copies readily available
❑ May be unfair to musicians
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IT Issues (2/3)
◼ Credit cards
❑ Convenience over cash and checks
❑ Increases possibility of identity theft
❑ Who owns information about transactions?
◼ Telecommuting
❑ Saves time, allows more flexible work hours
❑ Can lead to longer work hours
❑ May result in fewer chances for promotion
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IT Issues (3/3)
◼ Improved global communication network
❑ Allow companies to sell to entire world
❑ Allow companies to move jobs out of U.S.
◼ World Wide Web
❑ A conduit for democratic ideas?
❑ Another tool for totalitarian governments?
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Discussion
◼ Is Facebook good or bad?
❑ Discuss ways to make your time on Facebook better
◼ Have you been doing something unethical in class?
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