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- RISKS-LIST: RISKS-FORUM Digest Monday 11 January 1993 Volume 14 : Issue 25
-
- FORUM ON RISKS TO THE PUBLIC IN COMPUTERS AND RELATED SYSTEMS
- ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy, Peter G. Neumann, moderator
-
- Contents:
- Organizational Analysis in Computer Science -- PART TWO (Rob Kling)
- [PART ONE is in RISKS-14.24.]
-
- The RISKS Forum is moderated. Contributions should be relevant, sound, in
- good taste, objective, coherent, concise, and nonrepetitious. Diversity is
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- Relevant contributions may appear in the RISKS section of regular issues
- of ACM SIGSOFT's SOFTWARE ENGINEERING NOTES, unless you state otherwise.
-
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- [CONTINUED FROM RISKS-14.24]
-
- System Security and Reliability
-
- In a simplified engineering model of computing, the reliability of products is
- assured through extensive testing in a development lab. The social world of
- technology use is not perceived as shaping the reliability of systems, except
- through irascible human factors, such as "operator errors." An interesting and
- tragic illustration of the limitations of this view can be found in some
- recent studies of the causes of death and maiming by an electron accelerator
- which was designed to help cure cancer, the Therac-25 (Jacky, 1991, Leveson
- and Turner, 1992).
-
- The Therac-25 was designed and marketed in the mid 1980s by a Canadian firm
- AECL as an advanced medical technology. It featured complete software control
- over all major functions (supported by a DEC PDP-11), among other innovations.
- Previous machines included electro-mechanical interlocks to raise and lower
- radiation shields. Several thousand people were effectively treated with the
- Therac-25 each year. However, between 1985 and 1987 there were six known
- accidents in which several people died in the US. Other were seriously maimed
- or injured.
-
- Both studies concur that there were subtle but important flaws in the design
- of the Therac-25's software and hardware. AECL's engineers tried to patch the
- existing hardware and (finally) software when they learned of some of the
- mishaps. But they treated each fix as the final repair.
-
- Both studies show how the continuing series of mishaps was exacerbated by
- diverse organizational arrangements. Jacky claims that pressures for speedy
- work by low-skilled machine operators coupled with an interface design that
- did not enhance important error messages was one of many causes of the
- accidents. Leveson and Turner differ in downplaying the working conditions of
- the Therac-25's operators and emphasize the flawed social system for
- communicating the seriousness of problems to Federal regulators and other
- hospitals. Both studies observe that it is unlikely for the best of companies
- to develop perfect error-free systems without high quality feedback from
- users. Their recommendations differ: Jacky emphasizes the licensing of system
- developers to improve minimal standards of competence. Leveson and Turner
- propose extensive education and training of software engineers and more
- effective communication between manufacturers and their customers.
-
- However, both studies indicate that an understanding of the safety of computer
- systems must go beyond the laboratory and extend into the organizational
- settings where it is used. In the case of the Therac-25, it required
- understanding a complex web of interorganizational relationships, as well as
- the technical design and operation of the equipment. The need for this kind of
- organizational understanding is unfortunately slighted in the CS academic
- world today. CTF discusses only those aspects of computer system reliability
- which are amenable to understanding through laboratory-like studies (Hartmanis
- and Lin, 1992:110-111). But cases of safety critical systems, like the
- Therac-25, indicate why some Computer Scientists must be willing to undertake
- (and teach) organizational analysis.
-
- [From the title of the above section, I presume Rob had not yet gotten
- around to commenting on system security in complementary context to the
- discussion on human safety. But it seems that similar conclusions can
- be drawn. Apologies for the interjection. PGN]
-
- Worldviews and Surprises about Computerization
-
- These few paragraphs barely sketch the highlights of a fertile and significant
- body of research about computer systems in use. Perhaps the most important
- simplification for traditional computer scientists is to appreciate how people
- and their organizations are situated in a social world and consequently
- compute within a social world. People act in relationship to others in various
- ways and concerns of belonging, status, resources, and power are often
- central. The web of people's relationships extend beyond various formally
- defined group and organizational boundaries (Kling and Scacchi, 1982; Kling,
- 1992). People construct their worlds, including the meanings and uses of
- information technologies, through their social interactions.
-
- This view is, of course, not new to social scientists. On the other hand,
- there is no specific body of social theory which can easily be specialized for
- "the case of computing," and swiftly produce good theories for Organizational
- Informatics as trivial deductions. The best research in Organizational
- Informatics draws upon diverse theoretical and methodological approaches
- within the social sciences with a strong effort to select those which best
- explain diverse aspects of computerization.
-
- ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATICS WITHIN COMPUTER SCIENCE
-
- CTF places dual responsibilities on Computer Scientists. One responsibility is
- to produce a significant body of applicable research. The other responsibility
- is to educate a significant fraction of CS students to be more effective in
- conceiving and implementing systems that will enhance organizational
- performance. It may be possible to organize research and instruction so as to
- decouple these responsibilities. For example, molecular biologists play only a
- small role in training doctors. However, CS departments act like an integrated
- Medical school and Biology department. They are the primary academic locations
- for training degreed computing specialists, and they conduct a diverse array
- of less applicable and more applicable research. In practice, the research
- interests of CS faculty shape the range of topics taught in CS departments,
- especially the 150 PhD granting departments. CS curricula mirror major areas
- of CS research and the topics which CS faculty understand through their own
- educations and subsequent research. As a consequence, CS courses are likely to
- avoid important CS topics which appear a bit foreign to the instructor.
-
- An interesting example of this coupling can be illustrated by CTF, in a brief
- description of public-key encryption systems and digital signatures (Hartmanis
- and Lin, 1992:27). In the simple example, Bob and Alice can send messages
- reliably if each maintains a secret key. Nothing is said about the social
- complications of actually keeping keys secret. The practical problems are
- similar to those of managing passwords. In real organizations, people lose or
- forget their passwords. Also, some passwords can be shared by a group of with
- shifting membership, and the "secret key" can readily become semi-public. In
- practice, the management of keys is a critical element of system security.
- But Computer Scientists are prone to teach courses on cryptography as
- exercises in applied mathematics, such as number theory and Galois theory, and
- to skirt the vexing practical problems of making encryption a practical
- organizational activity.
-
- Today, most of the 40,000 people who obtain BS and MS degrees in CS each year
- in the U.S. have no opportunities for systematic exposure to reliable
- knowledge about the best design strategies, common uses, effective
- implementation, and assessments of value of computing in a social world
- (Lewis, 1989). Yet a substantial fraction of these students go on to work for
- organizations attempting to produce or maintain systems that improve
- organizational performance without a good conceptual basis for their work.
- Consequently, many of them develop systems that underperform in organizational
- terms even when they are technically refined. They also recommend ineffective
- implementation procedures and are sometimes even counterproductive.
-
- One defensible alternative to my position is that CS departments should not
- take on any form of organizational analysis. They should aggressively take a
- role akin to Biology departments rather than taking on any instructional or
- research roles like Medical schools. To be sincere, this position requires a
- high level of restraint by academic Computer Scientists. First and foremost,
- they should cease from talking about the uses, value or even problems of
- computerized systems that would be used in any organizational setting.
- Research proposals would be mute about any conceivable application of research
- results. Further, they should make effective efforts to insure that anyone who
- employs their graduates should be aware that they may have no special skills
- in understanding organizational computing. It would take an aggressive "truth
- in advertising" campaign to help make it clear that Computer Scientists have
- no effective methods for understanding computerization in the social world.
- Further, Computer Scientists would forsake their commitments to subfields like
- software engineering which tacitly deals with ways to support teams of systems
- developers to work effectively (Curtis, et. al. 1988). Computer Scientists, in
- this view, would remove themselves from addressing organizational and human
- behavior, in the same way that molecular biologists are removed from
- professionally commenting on the practices of cardiologists and obstetricians.
- CTF argues that this view would be self-defeating. But it would be internally
- consistent and have a distinctive integrity.
-
- In contrast, CS faculty are often reluctant to wholly embrace Organizational
- Informatics. But some CS subfields, such as software engineering, depend upon
- organizational analysis (Curtis, et. al., 1988). Further, CS faculty do little
- to advertise the distinctive limitations in the analytical skills of our
- programs' graduates. Part of the dilemma develops because many CS faculty are
- ambivalent about systematic studies of human behavior. Applied mathematics and
- other modes of inquiry which seem to yield concise, crisp and concrete results
- are often the most cherished. As a consequence, those who conduct behaviorally
- oriented research in CS departments are often inappropriately marginalized.
- Their students and the discipline suffers as a result.
-
- Between 1986 and 1989, the total number of BS and MS CS degrees awarded
- annually in the US declined from about 50,000 to approximately 40,000. The
- number of students majoring in CS rapidly declined at a time when
- computerization was becoming widespread in many fields. A significant fraction
- of the decline can be attributed to many students finding CS programs insular
- and indifferent to many exciting forms of computerization. The decline of
- military R&D in the U.S. can amplify these trends or stimulate a more
- cosmopolitan view in CS departments. The decline in military R&D is shifting
- the job market for new CS graduates towards a markedly more civilian
- orientation. This shift, along with the trend towards computing distributed
- into diverse work groups, is leading to more job opportunities for people with
- CS education who know Organizational Informatics.
-
- The situation of CS departments has some parallels with Statistics
- departments. Statistics are widely used and taught in many academic
- disciplines. But Statistics departments have often maintained a monkish
- isolation from "applications." Consequently, the application of statistics
- thrives while Statistics departments have few students and modest resources.
- Might the status of Statistics indicate a future possibility for an insular
- approach to CS?
-
- The best Organizational Informatics research in North America is conducted by
- faculty in the Information Systems departments in business schools and by
- scattered social scientists (cf. Boland and Hirschheim, 1987; Galegher, Kraut
- and Egido, 1990; Cotterman and Senn, 1992; Sproull and Kiesler, 1991). But
- Computer Scientists cannot effectively delegate the research and teaching of
- Organizational Informatics to business Schools or social science departments.
-
- Like Computer Scientists, faculty in these other disciplines prefer to focus
- on their own self-defined issues. Computer Scientists are much more likely to
- ask questions with attention to fine grained technological nuances that
- influence designs. For example, the professional discussions of computer risks
- have been best developed through activities sponsored by the ACM's Special
- Interest Group on Software (SIGSOFT). They are outside the purview of business
- school faculty and, at best, only a few social scientists are interested in
- them. Generally, technology plays a minor role in social science theorizing.
- And when social scientists study technologies, they see a world of
- possibilities: energy technologies, transportation technologies, communication
- technologies (including television), medicinal drugs and devices, and so on.
- They see little reason to give computer-related information technologies a
- privileged role within this cornucopia. As a consequence, the few social
- scientists who take a keen interest in studying computerization are
- unfortunately placed in marginal positions within their own disciplines. Often
- they must link their studies to mainstream concerns as defined by the
- tastemakers of their own fields, and the resulting publications appear
- irrelevant to Computer Scientists.
-
- Further, faculty in these other disciplines are not organized to effectively
- teach tens of thousands of CS students, students who are steeped in technology
- and usually very naive about organizations, about systems development and use
- in organizations. In North America there is no well developed institutional
- arrangement for educating students who can effectively take leadership roles
- in conceptualizing and developing complex organizational computing projects
- (Lewis, 1989).
-
- CTF is permeated with interesting claims about the social value of recent and
- emerging computer-based technologies. While many of these observations should
- rest on an empirically grounded scientific footing, Computer Scientists have
- deprived themselves of access to such research. For example, the discussion of
- systems risks in the ACM rests on a large and varied collection of examples
- and anecdotes. But there is no significant research program to help better
- understand the conditions under which organizations are more likely to develop
- systems using the best risk-reducing practices. There is an interesting body
- of professional lore, but little scholarship to ground it (See Appendix).
-
- Computer Scientists have virtually no scholarship to utilize in understanding
- when high performance networks, like the National Research and Education
- Network, will catalyze social value proportional to their costs. Consequently,
- many of the "obvious" claims about the value of various computing technologies
- that we Computer Scientists make are more akin to the lore of home remedies
- for curing illness. Some are valid, others are unfounded speculation. More
- seriously, the theoretical bases for recommending home medical remedies and
- new computer technologies can not advance without having sound research
- programs.
-
- WHAT IS NEEDED
-
- CTF sets the stage for developing Organizational Informatics as a
- strong subfield within Computer Science. CTF bases the expansion
- of the discipline on a rich array of applications in which many
- of the effective technologies must be conceived in relationship
- to plausible uses in order provide attractive social value for
- multi-billion dollar public investments.
-
- The CS community needs an institutionalized research capability to produce a
- reliable body of knowledge about the usability and value of computerized
- systems and the conditions under which computer systems improve organizational
- performance. In Western Europe there are research projects about
- Organizational Informatics in a few Computer Science departments and research
- funding through the EEC's Espirit program (Bubenko, 1992; Iivari, 1991; Kyng
- and Greenbaum, 1991). These new research and instructional programs in Western
- Europe give Organizational Informatics a significantly more effective place in
- CS education and research than it now has in North America.
-
- The CS community in the U.S. has 30 years of experience in institutionalizing
- research programs, especially through the Defense Advanced Research Projects
- Agency and the National Science Foundation (NSF). There are many approaches,
- including national centers and individual investigator research grants. All
- such programs aim to develop and sustain research fields with a combination of
- direct research funds, the education of future researchers, and the
- development of research infrastructure. They are all multimillion dollar
- efforts. Today, NSF devotes about $125K annually to Organizational Informatics
- as part of the Information Technology in Organizations program. This start is
- far short of the level of funding required to develop this field within CS.
-
- The North American CS curricula must also include opportunities for students
- to learn the most reliable knowledge about the social dimensions of systems
- development and use (Denning, 1992). These opportunities, formed as courses,
- can provide varied levels of sophistication. The most elementary courses
- introduce students to some of the key topics in Organizational Informatics and
- the limitations of Systems Rationalism as an organizing frame (for example,
- Dunlop and Kling, 1991a). More advanced courses focus on specific topics, such
- as those I have listed above. They teach about substantive problems and
- theoretical approaches for analyzing them. While many of these approaches are
- anchored in the sociological theory of organizations, CS students usually
- won't grasp the importance of the theories without numerous computing examples
- to work with. They also have trouble grasping the character of computing in
- organizations without guided opportunities for observing and analyzing
- computerization in practice. Consequently, some courses should offer
- opportunities for studying issues of computerization in actual organizations.
-
- Fortunately, a few CS departments offer some courses in Organizational
- Informatics. In addition, some CS faculty who research and teach about human
- behavior in areas like Human-Computer Interaction and Software Engineering
- can help expand the range of research an instruction. Unfortunately, only a
- fraction of the CS departments in the US. have faculty who study and teach
- about computing and human behavior.
-
- While the study of Organizational Informatics builds upon both the traditional
- technological foundations of CS and the social sciences, the social sciences
- at most universities will not develop it as an effective foundational topic
- for CS. On specific campuses, CS faculty may be able to develop good
- instructional programs along with colleagues in social sciences or Schools of
- Management.
-
- But delegating this inquiry to some other discipline does not provide a
- national scale solution for CS. Other disciplines will not do our important
- work for us. Mathematics departments may be willing to teach graph theory for
- CS students, but the analysis of algorithms would be a much weaker field if it
- could only be carried out within Mathematics Departments. For similar reasons,
- it is time for academic Computer Science to embrace Organizational Informatics
- as a key area of research and instruction.
-
- REFERENCES
-
- Bentley, Richard, Tom Rodden, Peter Sawyer, Ian Sommerville, John
- Hughes, David Randall and Dan Shapiro. 1992.
- "Ethnographically Informed Systems Design for Air Traffic
- Control." Proc. Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative
- Work, Jon Turner and Robert Kraut (ed.) New York, ACM Press.
- Boland, Richard and Rudy Hirschhiem (Ed). 1987. Critical Issues
- in Information Systems, New York: John-Wiley.
- Bullen, Christine and John Bennett. 1991. Groupware in Practice:
- An Interpretation of Work Experience" in Dunlop and Kling 1991b.
- Bubenko, Janis. 1992. "On the Evolution of Information Systems
- Modeling: A Scandinavian Perspective." in Lyytinen and
- Puuronen, 1992.
- Cotterman, William and James Senn (Eds). 1992. Challenges and
- Strategies for Research in Systems Development. New York:
- John Wiley.
- Curtis, Bill, Herb Krasner and Niel Iscoe. 1988. "A Field Study
- of the Software Design Process for Large Systems,"
- Communications. of the ACM. 31(11):1268-1287.
- Denning, Peter. 1991. "Computing, Applications, and Computational
- Science." Communications of the ACM. (October)
- 34(10):129-131.
- Denning, Peter. 1992. "Educating a New Engineer" Communications
- of the ACM. (December) 35(12):83-97
- Dunlop, Charles and Rob Kling, 1991a. "Introduction to the
- Economic and Organizational Dimensions of Computerization."
- in Dunlop and Kling, 1991b.
- Dunlop, Charles and Rob Kling (Ed). 1991b. Computerization and
- Controversy: Value Conflicts and Social Choices. Boston:
- Academic Press.
- Ehn, Pelle. 1991. "The Art and Science of Designing Computer
- Artifacts." in Dunlop and Kling, 1991.
- Fish, Robert S., Robert E. Kraut, Robert W. Root, and Ronald E.
- Rice. "Video as a Technology for Informed Communication."
- Communications of the ACM,36(1)(January 1993):48-61.
- Galegher, Jolene, Robert Kraut, and Carmen Egido (Ed.) 1990.
- Intellectual Teamwork: Social and Intellectual Foundations
- of Cooperative Work. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
- Greif, Irene. ed. 1988. Computer Supported Cooperative Work: A
- Book of Readings. San Mateo, Ca: Morgan Kaufman.
- Grudin, Jonathan. 1989. "Why Groupware Applications Fail:
- Problems in Design and Evaluation." Office: Technology and
- People. 4(3):245-264.
- Hartmanis, Juris and Herbert Lin (Eds). 1992. Computing the
- Future: A Broader Agenda for Computer Science and
- Engineering. Washington, DC. National Academy Press.
- [Briefly summarized in Communications of the ACM,35(11)
- November 1992]
- [[TO BE DISCUSSED AT ACM CSC in Indianapolis, 16-18 Feb 1992... PGN]]
- Hewitt, Carl. 1986. "Offices are Open Systems" ACM Transactions
- on Office Information Systems. 4(3)(July):271-287.
- Iivari, J. 1991."A Paradigmatic Analysis of Contemporary Schools
- of IS Development." European J. Information Systems
- 1(4)(Dec): 249-272.
- Jacky, Jonathan. 1991. "Safety-Critical Computing: Hazards,
- Practices, Standards, and Regulation" in Dunlop and Kling
- 1991b.
- Jarvinen, Pertti. 1992. "On Research into the Individual and
- Computing Systems," in Lyytinen and Puuronen, 1992.
- King, John L. and Kenneth L. Kraemer. 1981. "Cost as a Social
- Impact of Telecommunications and Other Information
- Technologies." In Mitchell Moss (Ed.) Telecommunications and
- Productivity, New York: Addison-Wesley.
- Kling, Rob. 1992. "Behind the Terminal: The Critical Role of
- Computing Infrastructure In Effective Information Systems'
- Development and Use." Chapter 10 in Challenges and
- Strategies for Research in Systems Development. edited by
- William Cotterman and James Senn. Pp. 153-201. New York:
- John Wiley.
- Kling, Rob and Charles Dunlop. 1993. "Controversies About
- Computerization and the Character of White Collar Worklife."
- The Information Society. 9(1) (Jan-Feb)
- Kling, Rob and Lisa Covi. 1993. Review of Connections by Lee
- Sproull and Sara Kiesler. The Information Society, 9(1)
- (Jan-Feb, 1993).
- Kling, Rob, Isaac Scherson, and Jonathan Allen. 1992. "Massively
- Parallel Computing and Information Capitalism" in A New Era
- of Computing. W. Daniel Hillis and James Bailey (Ed.)
- Cambridge, Ma: The MIT Press.
- Kling, Rob and Walt Scacchi. 1982. "The Web of Computing: Com-
- puting Technology as Social Organization", Advances in
- Computers. Vol. 21, Academic Press: New York.
- Kraemer, Kenneth .L., Dickhoven, Siegfried, Fallows-Tierney,
- Susan, and King, John L. 1985. Datawars: The Politics of
- Modeling in Federal Policymaking. New York: Columbia
- University Press.
- Kyng, Morton and Joan Greenbaum. 1991. Design at Work:
- Cooperative Work of Computer Systems. Hillsdale, NJ.:
- Lawrence Erlbaum.
- Ladner, Sharyn and Hope Tillman. 1992. "How Special Librarians
- Really Use the Internet: Summary of Findings and
- Implications for the Library of the Future" Canadian
- Library Journal, 49(3), 211-216.
- Leveson, Nancy G. and Clark S. Turner. 1992. "An Investigation of
- the Therac-25 Accidents". Technical Report #92-108.
- Department of Information and Computer Science, University
- of California, Irvine.
- Lewis, Philip M. 1989. "Information Systems as an Engineering
- Discipline." Communications of the ACM
- 32(9)(Sept):1045-1047.
- Lucas, Henry C. 1981. Implementation : the Key to Successful
- Information Systems. New York: Columbia University Press.
- Lyytinen, Kalle and Seppo Puuronen (Ed.) 1992. Computing in the
- Past, Present and Future: Issues and approaches in honor of
- the 25th anniversary of the Department of Computer Science
- and Information Systems. Jyvaskyla Finland, Dept. of CS and
- IS, University of Jyvaskyla.
- Orlikowski, Wanda. 1992. "Learning from Notes: Organizational
- Issues in Groupware Implementation." Proc. Conference on
- Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, Jon Turner and Robert
- Kraut (Ed.) New York, ACM Press.
- Sarmanto, Auvo. 1992. "Can Research and Education in the Field
- of Information Sciences Foresee the Future of Development?"
- in Lyytinen and Puuronen, 1992.
- Sproull, Lee and Sara Kiesler. 1991. Connections: New Ways of
- Working in the Networked Organization. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
- Suchman, Lucy. 1983. "Office Procedures as Practical Action: Models
- of Work and System Design." ACM Transactions on Office
- Information Systems. 1(4)(October):320-328.
- Winograd, Terry and Fernando Flores. 1986. Understanding
- Computers and Cognition. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing.
-
-
-
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
-
- This paper builds on ideas which I've developed over the last decade. But they
- have been deepened by some recent events, such as the CTF report. They were
- also sharpened through a lecture and followon discussion with colleagues at
- the University of Toronto, including Ron Baeker, Andy Clement, Kelley
- Gottlieb, and Marilyn Mantei. Rick Weingarten suggested that I write a brief
- position paper reflecting those ideas. At key points, Peter Denning and Peter
- Neumann provided helpful encouragement and sage advice. I also appreciate the
- efforts of numerous other friends and colleagues to help strengthen this paper
- through their comments and critical assistance. The paper is immeasurably
- stronger because of the prompt questions and suggestions that I received in
- response to an evolving manuscript from the following people: Mark Ackerman,
- Jonathan P. Allen, Bob Anderson, Lisa Covi, Brad Cox, Gordon Davis, Phillip
- Fites, Simson Garfinkel, Les Gasser, Sy Goodman, Beki Grinter, Jonathan
- Grudin, Pertti Jarvinen, John King, Heinz Klein, Trond Knudsen, Kenneth
- Kraemer, Sharyn Ladner, Nancy Leveson, Lars Matthiesen, Colin Potts, Paul
- Resnick, Larry Rosenberg, Tim Standish, John Tillquist, Carson Woo and Bill
- Wulf.
-
- APPENDIX
-
- Published Materials about Computer Risks
-
- Unfortunately, there is no single good book or comprehensive review article
- about the diverse risks of computerized systems to people and organizations,
- and ways to mitigate them. The Internet board, comp.risks, is the richest
- archive of diverse episodes and diverse discussions of their causes and cures.
- While its moderator, Peter Neumann does a superb job of organizing discussions
- of specific topics each year and also creates periodic indices, there is no
- simple way to sift through the megabytes of accumulated comp.risks files.
-
- Computerization and Controversy edited by Charles Dunlop and Rob Kling (1991)
- includes two major sections on "security and reliability" and "privacy and
- social control" which identify many key debates and reprint some key articles
- and book excerpts which reflect different positions. Another major source is
- a series of articles, "Inside Risks, which Peter Neumann edits for
- Communications of the ACM.
-
- This is a list of this series of articles, to date:
- (All articles are by Peter Neumann unless otherwise indicated.)
-
- Jul 90. 1. Some Reflections on a Telephone Switching Problem
- Aug 90. 2. Insecurity About Security?
- Sep 90. 3. A Few Old Coincidences
- Oct 90. 4. Ghosts, Mysteries, and Risks of Uncertainty
- Nov 90. 5. Risks in computerized elections
- Dec 90. 6. Computerized medical devices, Jon Jacky
- Jan 91. 7. The Clock Grows at Midnight
- Feb 91. 8. Certifying Programmers and Programs
- Mar 91. 9. Putting on Your Best Interface
- Apr 91. 10. Interpreting (Mis)information
- May 91. 11. Expecting the Unexpected Mayday!
- Jun 91. 12. The Risks With Risk Analysis, Robert N. Charette
- Jul 91. 13. Computers, Ethics, and Values
- Aug 91. 14. Mixed Signals About Social Responsibility, Ronni Rosenberg
- Sep 91. 15. The Not-So-Accidental Holist
- Oct 91. 16. A National Debate on Encryption Exportability, Clark Weissman
- Nov 91. 17. The Human Element
- Dec 91. 18. Collaborative Efforts
- Jan 92. 19. What's in a Name?
- Feb 92. 20. Political Activity and International Computer Networks, Sy Goodman
- Mar 92. 21. Inside ``Risks of `Risks' ''
- Apr 92. 22. Privacy Protection, Marc Rotenberg
- May 92. 23. System Survivability
- Jun 92. 24. Leaps and Bounds (Leap-year and distributed system problems)
- Jul 92. 25. Aggravation by Computer: Life, Death, and Taxes,
- Aug 92. 26. Fraud by Computer
- Sep 92. 27. Accidental Financial Losses
- Oct 92. 28. Where to Place Trust
- Nov 92. 29. Voting-Machine Risks, Rebecca Mercuri
- Dec 92. 30. Avoiding Weak Links
- Jan 93. 31. Risks Considered Global(ly)
- Feb 93. 32. Is Dependability Attainable?
- Mar 93. 33. Risks of Technology
-
- ------------------------------
-
- End of RISKS-FORUM Digest 14.25
- ************************
-