School of Engineering and Applied Science Department of Computer Science CSci 110 -- Technology and Society http://www.seas.gwu.edu/~mfeldman/csci110/summer06 Prof. Michael B. Feldman, course instructor mfeldman@gwu.edu

The Social Impact Analysis Project on Identity Theft -- 30% of grade, due in Stages

The main project for this course will be based upon an investigation of Identity Theft. You will be expected to look at sites with information about the detection and prevention of identity theft. Each group will be assigned different aspects of the project to research. For example, there are different types of identity theft and issues being looked at right now by citizens, law enforcement, and governments around the world. There are many serious policy, cost, access and societal concerns about these technologies.

Your challenge is to research the topic as a class and design a survey to examine public attitudes about identity theft issues and challenges. Each group will develop its own survey, and deploy it on the zoomerang.com survey website. You will collate and analyze the data, and each group will write a report of its findings. ONE final project paper per group is expected.

Procedure:

Week 2 -- Group mini-reports on identity theft issues (5%): Each group investigates its specific given research topics (see below) related to identity theft, and reports back with information about the research topics for the entire class.

Week 3 -- Draft survey instruments (5%): Each team will provide questions for the final survey instrument based upon their research.

Week 4 -- FINAL SURVEY INSTRUMENT due and deployed. Each team will deploy a survey on Zoomerang (www.zoomerang.com). One person on the team will create a FREE account (good for ten days) and enter the survey questions, etc. EMAIL INSTRUCTORS THE URL FOR YOUR SURVEY so we can "advertise" your need for data. Be sure you also recruit your own family, friends, etc. to take your survey! :)

Week 5 -- Collate, analyze, preliminary results from survey data (5%): Each team will examine the survey data and do its own analysis on the data to provide preliminary results.

Week 6 -- Final Social Impact Analysis Report (15%): Each team will write a report based upon the data that contains an abstract, introduction to identity theft issues, introduction to the ethical and social issues, discussion of the research protocol, presentation of the findings, conclusions and bibliography.

Research focus for the groups:

• Group 1: Hardware/ software technologies currently being developed for identity theft -- both protection and those seeking to exploit/steal consumer data.
• Group 2: Social policy issues – anonymity, access, fraud, etc.
• Group 3: Security/Prevention/Authentication solutions (policy and technical)
• All Groups: Think about what is going to happen in the future in the realm of identity theft as far as technology, prosecution, and citizen data protection is concerned. Address this question as well: What are YOU going to do in the future to protect your identity and/or the identity of others.

Focus for the creation of survey questions:

• Demographics of respondents.
• Attitudes related to identity theft protection/features and technologies.
• Attitudes related to social impact, policy issues, legal, etc.
• Open-ended questions where respondents can type comments.

2006 Results: