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Cases on Emerging Risks
(Web Page on Another Site)
The International Risk Governance Council (IRGC) is an independent organization that aims to help improve the understanding and management of potentially global risks that have impacts on human health and safety, the environment, the economy and society at large. As part of a Phase 1 project on emerging risks they have assembled a number of case studies and illustrations including a case on large-scale engineered systems.
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A New Dialysis Machine
(Web Page on this Site)
Hypothetical Case
An engineer faces trade-offs in the design of new equipment that could greatly affect the final product.
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Research in Science (Intellectual Property)
(Web Page on this Site)
Fictionalized Case
Students who designed a program for a course project wish to negotiate it's use.
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Numerical & Design Problems With Ethical Content
(Web Page on this Site)
These 18 assignable problems were originally developed as part of an NSF-funded project to create numerical problems that raise ethical issues for use in engineering and other course assignments. They are technical problems that apply to a number of engineering disciplines.
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Ethics and Reverse Engineering
(Web Page on this Site)
Hypothetical Case
This student project uses interviews with Texas Instruments employees to explore the ramifications of reverse engineering.
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An Investigation of the Therac-25 Accidents
(Web Page on this Site)
Historical Case
Abstract of a 1993 article from IEEE Computer about the Therac-25 computerized radiation therapy machine and its software flaws, which caused massive overdoses to patients.
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Case of the Killer Robot
(Web Page on this Site)
A synopsis and index of the documents in the Case of the Killer Robot, a detailed hypothetical scenario that combines elements of software engineering and computer ethics. The case consists of several FICTIONAL newspaper articles.
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Legal Records Scenario
(Web Page on this Site)
Mini-case
This scenario by Michael C. Loui explores the ethical issues involved in the electronic monitoring of the secretarial staff's email.
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Online Cases about Computers and Software
(Web Page on this Site)
An index of cases maintained by others.
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Sample Scenarios on Issues Surrounding Internet Privacy
(Web Page on this Site)
6 scenarios that discuss computers and Internet privacy, sampled from publications of the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
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The David LaMacchia Case
(Web Page on this Site)
Historical Case
This is an annotated list of links to articles, legal documents, and newsgroup postings pertaining to the software piracy case of David LaMacchia, an MIT student who allegedly used university hardware to distribute commercial software over the Internet, which raises important issues about the liability of system operators and the scope of computer crime and copyright laws.