Book reviews – Computers and Society

C. Dianne Martin is Emeritus Professor of Computer Science at George Washington University, and Adjunct Professor in the School of Information, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has been teaching Computers and Society since 1983.

I was delighted to receive email early this year from Prof. Ron Baecker, whose Computers and Society class at the University of Maryland in 1972 made me see that I could productively combine my previous studies in the social sciences and humanities with my new career in information technology. I was therefore eager to read his latest book, Digital Dreams Have Become Nightmares: What We Must Do.

In documenting his personal journey from dreams and exuberant optimism about computer technology to pessimism, nightmares, and fear caused by the emerging consequences of the tech explosion of the past 75 years. Ron has provided a comprehensive historical sweep of the computer revolution. In Part I he chronicles the high hopes of early developers to create technological solutions to disparities in healthcare and education, to increase creativity, collaboration, and community, and to provide greater power and convenience to all.

Cybersecurity expert Prof. Susan Landau’s valuable and insightful recent book, People Count: Contact-Tracing Apps and Public Health, stresses that trust in government is essential to making contact tracing work for everyone.

Contact tracing is a process for identifying, informing, and monitoring people who might have come into contact with a person who has been diagnosed with an infectious disease such as COVID-19. It starts with a positive test. Public health officials then need to know who that person might have inadvertently infected. This requires tracking down anyone that person had contacted (was “close enough” for “long enough”) recently (14 days in the case of COVID). They can then be informed that they might have been infected and take measures to quarantine and monitor for symptoms. For example, restaurants initiate tracing by recording the name and phone number of one person in each party taking a table in the restaurant.

Computers and Society

Resources for Learning and Thinking Ethically

Category: Book reviews

A Review of: ‘Digital Dreams Have Become Nightmares: What We Must Do’

A Review of: ‘People Count: Contact-Tracing Apps and Public Health’