6.095 Bits (U)

Professor Hal Abelson, Room 32-366, hal@mit.edu
Prereq.: Permission of Instructor
4-0-8

Intro:

This course aims to characterize and explain the world's dramatic increase in information and communication capacity over the past decade or two, and to explore some of the resulting implications for public policy, regulation, and legislation, and the implied responsibilities of citizens, corporations, and government. Thus the substance of the course is part science, part technology, and part public policy and law. The important technologies are electrical engineering, especially electronic communications and data management, and computing. Important public issues include privacy, ownership of information and of ideas, and risks in the use and abuse of information technology.

Topics:

Information as quantity, resource, and property. Quantitative aspects of information technologies as they inform issues of public policy, regulation, and law. How are music, images, and telephone conversations represented digitally, and how are they moved reliably from place to place through wires, glass fibers, and the air? Who owns information, who owns software, what forms of regulation and law restrict the communication and use of information, and does it matter? How can personal privacy be protected at the same time as society benefits from communicated or shared information? Glitches, bugs, viruses, design flaws, and other failures, risks, and limitations of information systems

No prerequisites Permission of instructor required.