Rubric for Group Essay (40 marks)

Important Points:

• Essay vs. Report https://pediaa.com/difference-between-essay-and-report/
• Threat Modelling https://www.linkedin.com/learning/learning-threat-modeling-for-security-professionals/develop-secure- products?u=57684225
• If you are repeating this subject, you MUST NOT submit the same report or chose the same topic. No marks will be awarded in such cases.
• Choose ONE topic only (See attached list of topics)
• This is an ESSAY not a REPORT.
• This is an individual assignment.
• Plagiarism and borrowing ideas without proper references will lead to marks deduction.
• It is entirely possible that there is no “right” or “wrong” answer in your topic.
• However, you must state your view clearly, and it must be supported by good arguments and credible references
• You may, with approval, nominate your own topic.
• If you would like to submit your own research paper topic, email your proposal and rationale to adnan.syed2@tafensw.edu.au .
• Your topic will be considered, but there is no guarantee that your topic will be approved. Submit your proposal (in writing) by COB week-8.
• Your topic may also be made available for other students.
• If you are choosing your own topic, then you should include risk analysis.
• This risk analysis will follow DREAD, Microsoft threat Modelling Process, STRIDE, OCTAVE or similar methodology, depending on the technology being investigated.
• Divert questions on your assignment 2 to adnan.syed2@tafensw.edu.au.
• Ask your questions early.
• Here is a good site for essay writing skills: https://student.unsw.edu.au/essay-writing-basics

Essay Topics:

1.     Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

The World Economic Forum identified top 9 ethical issues in artificial intelligence. One of which is “How do we protect against unintended consequences?”

Are we overreacting? What are some possible unintended consequences in the development of machine learning and AI, and what are possible options to protect against such unintended consequences?

2.     Autonomous Vehicles

Below is a chart of air accident fatalities over 1918 – 2016 compiled by the Aircraft Crashes Record Office.:

At the pioneering stage of aviation, we see fatalities increases rapidly and as (painful) lessons are learnt, fatalities decreased and air travel is the safest way to travel nowadays. (Note that number of aircraft and air traffic increases steadily over the time period, hence the fatalities per flight or per KM travelled is in fact much more impressive than projected in the chart)

With the advent of autonomous vehicles, is it likely that we are going to experience an upward trend in accident at the beginning as we learn? Is the analogy between early aviation and early autonomous vehicle even appropriate?

What is the acceptable level of fatalities should the society accept before declaring either “Autonomous Vehicles are Safe!” or “Autonomous Vehicles are not safe yet, and we have no way to make it safe without costing additional lives. So, let’s pull the plug”?

3.     Internet of Things and Privacy

A Panopticon Prison is a type of prison designed by the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the late 18th century.

The concept of the design is to allow all inmates to be observed by a single guard without the inmates being able to tell whether or not they are being watched.

Although it is physically impossible for the single watchman to observe all cells at once, the fact that the inmates cannot know when they are being watched means that all inmates must act as though they are watched at all times, effectively controlling their own behaviour constantly.

With Internet of Things gaining interest, and people willingly put monitoring devices (such as Google Home/Amazon Echo and Alexa) into their homes, is there a risk that one day we ended up living in a new kind of Panopticon Prison? If privacy is a concern, why is IoT gaining interests? And How would IoT affect the World in the next ten years?

4.     Privacy, Censorship and Freedom

Over the years, the world has seen various kind of whistleblowers. They often have very different motives and operate at different levels, both inside and outside of the organisation.

For example, Frederick Winterbotham, who wanted to write a memoir of his wartime achievements and, as he was dying, was not bothered about prosecution, he revealed the Allies’ success in breaking German and Japanese cipher systems during that war, which led to many further books on World War 2 SIGINT (Signal Intelligence). Regarding privacy and phone tapping, we have Peg Newsham who revealed that the NSA had illegally tapped a phone call made by Senator Strom Thurmond. Closer to home, and the most substantial recent source on the organisation and methods of

U.S. and allied SIGINT was put together by New Zealand journalist Nicky Hager following the New Zealand intelligence community’s failure to obey an order from their Prime Minister to downgrade intelligence cooperation with the USA.

In more recent times, the most prominent case concerning our privacy and the government surveillance was the case of Edward Snowden. Who is Edward Snowden? What did he do? Is what he did justified? Is he a hero, a traitor or a terrorist? Why?

5.     Cyber Crime, Cyber Terrorism and Cyber Activism

Hacktivism is the act of hacking, or breaking into a computer system, for a politically or socially motivated purpose. The individual who performs an act of hacktivism is said to be a hacktivist. The most notable group of hacktivists is perhaps the “Anonymous”.

Are there any other differences between hacking and Hacktivism? Are the hackers’ actions justified by who they choose to target, for example consider Ashley Maddison, the Whitehouse, Sony. What about ISIS or sites showing child pornography? If you think that hacktivism is never justified, explain your rationale. If you think actions of hacktivism is sometimes justified, how then should the law deal with hacktivists in cases like these?

6.     Cyber War and Electronic Warfare

Carl von Clausewitz, Prussian military theorist, and the author of “On War”, famously said that “War is the continuation of politics by other means” (with many aphorisms). With cyberwar defined as: “nation states attacking each other via the internet”, it is an important weapon for political conflicts, espionage, and propaganda. This definition of cyberwar seems to fit well in the Clausewitzian theory of war.

However, von Clausewitz also said that “War is nothing but a duel on an extensive scale”. Since the first state-to-state cyberattack in 1999, cyberattacks have not caused large scale injury, loss of life and destruction of property. To this day such direct damage to life and physical property has not been attributed to cyberattacks. So, with this view, Cyberwar is not a war. It is not a duel if no one gets hurt.

With this conflicting view in mind, is cyber war a “war”, and would a cyber war lead to actual use of force? If so, how? If you think that Cyber Warfare would not lead to the actual use of force, what changes or development in the future might have the potential to lead cyber war into a physical war? What is the international community doing, or what SHOULD they be doing to prevent a cyber war to become a physical war?

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