Combatting Electoral Traces: The Dutch Tempest Discussion and Beyond

Pieters, Wolter

doi:10.1007/978-3-642-04135-8_11

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 9 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Therefore, although the Dutch electronic voting controversy was framed as a privacy-type issue (Pieters 2009), there was certainly more at stake. This shows that social issues related to IT cannot be understood in terms of privacy only.…”

Section: Electronic Votingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond individual-centric privacy: Information technology in social systems

Pieters

2017

The Information Society

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In the public debate, social implications of information technology are mainly seen through the privacy lens. Impact assessments of information technology are also often limited to privacy impact assessments, which are focused on individual rights and well-being, as opposed to the social environment. In this paper, I argue that this perspective is too narrow, in terms of understanding the complexity of the relation between information technology and society, as well as in terms of directions for managing this relation. I use systems theory to show that current approaches focus mostly on individual impact of information technology developments rather than their mediating role in society itself. I argue that this should be complemented by an analysis of impact on individuals (psychic systems) via co-construction of the environment (social system). I then take up the question what the role of information technology in social systems would look like in terms of the social relations of trust and power, and how this can complement privacy in discussions on impacts of information technology.

show abstract

Section: Electronic Votingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond individual-centric privacy: Information technology in social systems

Pieters

2017

The Information Society

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For example, voters leave fingerprints on their ballots, in principle allowing others to assess which vote is theirs. Such "electoral traces" (Pieters 2009) may break the secrecy of the ballot. Also, ballot boxes may not be empty at the start of an election, allowing so-called "ballot stuffing.…”

Section: Example: Electronic Votingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The (Social) Construction of Information Security

Pieters

2011

The Information Society

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

While the philosophical foundations of information security have been unexamined, there is an implicit philosophy of what protection of information is. This philosophy is based on the notion of containment, taken from analogies with things that offer physical security (e.g., buildings, safes, fences). I argue that this implicit philosophy is unsatisfactory in the current age of increased connectivity, and provide an alternative foundation. I do so from a constructionist point of view, where the coevolution of social and technical mechanisms is seen as the source of the security of an information system, rather than rational design choices only. I employ the concept of causal insulation from system theory in order to give an account of the fundamental characteristics of information security research. This generates definitions that can be used for philosophically informed discussions on the protection of information in new systems.A growing proportion of computer science research is now devoted to what is called information security. In this subdiscipline the focus is on how to protect information systems from malicious users. This is quite different from research in other areas of computer science such as programming paradigms or software engineering methods, primarily because security is concerned with what systems should not do rather than what they should do. The philosophical basis of this research, however, has not received much attention until now. Although security-related societal implications of information systems, especially in the area of privacy (see, e.g., Nissenbaum 1998; Floridi 2005; Gutwirth and De Hert 2008), have been discussed extensively, the philosophical foundations of the scientific endeavour have been left largely unexamined. This oversight is not only problematic philosophically; it also makes it impossible to connect high-level privacy discussions with the possibilities the technology now offers.When computer scientists speak of privacy, they mean a special kind of information security, namely, confidentiality of personal information. But the repertoire of information security is much broader, as it covers integrity and availability of information next to confidentiality, and business, military, and government information next to personal information. For the computer scientist it does not matter what kind of information needs to be secured. However, for the policymaker, it does. Therefore, the technical solutions never speak of privacy as it is used at policy level, and policymakers never speak of information security as it is used in the technical domain.While the philosophical foundations of information security have been unexamined, there is an implicit philosophy 1 of protection of information based on the notion of containment, taken from analogies with things that offer physical security (e.g., buildings, safes, fences). Correspondingly, in such a philosophy, the asset to be protected needs to be separated from the environment by security boundaries such as a firewall. This fort...

show abstract

Security-by-Experiment: Lessons from Responsible Deployment in Cyberspace

2015

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Conceiving new technologies as social experiments is a means to discuss responsible deployment of technologies that may have unknown and potentially harmful side-effects. Thus far, the uncertain outcomes addressed in the paradigm of new technologies as social experiments have been mostly safety-related, meaning that potential harm is caused by the design plus accidental events in the environment. In some domains, such as cyberspace, adversarial agents (attackers) may be at least as important when it comes to undesirable effects of deployed technologies. In such cases, conditions for responsible experimentation may need to be implemented differently, as attackers behave strategically rather than probabilistically. In this contribution, we outline how adversarial aspects are already taken into account in technology deployment in the field of cyber security, and what the paradigm of new technologies as social experiments can learn from this. In particular, we show the importance of adversarial roles in social experiments with new technologies.

show abstract

Combatting Electoral Traces: The Dutch Tempest Discussion and Beyond

Cited by 4 publications

References 9 publications

Beyond individual-centric privacy: Information technology in social systems

Beyond individual-centric privacy: Information technology in social systems

The (Social) Construction of Information Security

Security-by-Experiment: Lessons from Responsible Deployment in Cyberspace

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About