Privacy is widely used in the computer science field, but what is somebody referring to when they mention it? Information is a key word to consider when discussing privacy. When privacy is invaded, someone is finding out information about a person that really isn't her business. Lately, there are debates on what information should be able to be kept private and what should be considered public domain. This issue is an area of concern with respect to our rights under federal law because there are proposed bills that will affect the computer industry.

There are bills such as Communications Decency Act, an act do control 'indecent' material available to the public on the internet, and the Clipper Encryption Chip , a proposal to allow the government to have access to an individual's information via encryption methods. A good source for finding information on topics such as these is Wired Magazine. When linking there, you will have to register your name. The direct link is "http://www.hotwired.com/Lib/Privacy/index.html".

Privacy has created a lot of recent interest lately, but the Privacy Act of 1974 and Privacy Protection Act of 1980 seem to be where this concern began (they show direct introduction of the subject of federal records on citizens) , however some people choose to believe details about our right to privacy started earlier, and others even believe they don't exist. Whether they exist or not, the the government has done things that effect our privacy such as computer matching, where they compared lists of information on citizens in order to find out information. For example, lists of welfare recipients were matched with government employee records to detect fraudulent welfare claims.

A lot of times the issue of information security enters the same arena as privacy , which is true because the lack of security leads to situations where peoples' privacy is in jeopardy. There are many places with information on these topics such as the University of Pennsylvania and other places where recent issues are discussed such as alt.privacy. When addressing privacy, it may also be important to know that the government can search to see what you have according to the Federal Computer Seizure Guidelines.

There's an increase in activity in Intellectual Property Protection (see Intellectual Property Information). Intellectual property protection is made to protect ownership right for the make, use, and sale of inventions, ideas, methods, and their identifications. The forms of protection are patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets. Computer scientists should be aware of what each property right is when they are developing products. The Property Descriptions section of this project contains details about them.

There are considerable amounts of money involved with cases in courts ruling on intellectual property. Computer companies such as Apple, HP, Microsoft, Xerox, IBM, and Lotus have all been involved in controversies in this area. The U.S. has almost gone into trade wars based on widespread copyright infringements of software (specifically, Microsoft), and even threatened China with no entry into GATT (General Agreement for Trade and Tariffs) if they didn't enforce intellectual property laws. Many interesting facts about property rights have popped up that concern the computer industry such as:

• Microsoft has a goal of applying for 100 patents each year.
• Unisys wanted to impose a 3% "GIF-tax" to companies that distrubute and use GIF format files, such as compuserve.
• In 1990, Gilbert Hyatt patented the single-chip microprocessor.
• Some courts have found that it is legal to strip down a computer program to uncopyrighted material to understand functionality (called reverse engineering). (Sega v Accolade, 1992)

With the fact in mind that these rights are a concerning issue, it is wise to know about them if involved in the industy.