WORMS

When reading Lessig’s piece “Four Puzzles from Cyber Space”, 1 puzzle stood out for me over the rest. The section was called “Worms that sniff” and explored the ethical and constitutional effects of technology and in particular, advanced software such as Worms. A “Worm” (as it is defined in the reading) is a bit of computer code that is spit out on the Net and works its way into the systems of vulnerable computers (Lessig, L, 2006 pp15).

Lessig’s hypothetical scenario is as follows;

“Imagine a worm designed to do good (at least in the minds of some). Imagine that the code writer is the FBI and that the FBI is looking for a particular document belonging to the National Security Agency (NSA). Suppose that this document is classified and illegal to possess without the proper clearance. Imagine that the worm propagates itself on the Net, finding its way onto hard disks wherever it can. Once on a computer’s hard disk, it scans the entire disk. If it finds the NSA document, it sends a message back to the FBI saying as much. If it doesn’t, it erases itself. Finally, assume that it can do all this without “interfering” with the operation of the machine. No one would know it was there; it would report back nothing except that the NSA document was on the hard disk”

Is this an unconstitutional worm? (2006, pp15)    

While Lessig has arguments for both for and against, I don’t believe this worm to be unconstitutional. Their Fourth Amendment was put in place so that only people of interest or suspicion were to be searched (Lessig, L, 2006 pp16). While the worm did break the amendment in this respect, changes should be made to keep up with changing technologies. The Fourth Amendment was introduced to control the searching of houses; to protect the innocent from having the houses and possessions destroyed for no reason.

The Worm in Lessig’s scenario is a piece of code and can only see what it is looking for. And perhaps more importantly, unlike the general search, the worm learns little and leaves no damage after it’s finished: The code can’t read private letters; it doesn’t break down doors; it doesn’t interfere with ordinary life. And the innocent have nothing to fear (2006, pp17)

Their Fourth Amendment doesn’t distinguish between the different types of searches because the technology wasn’t around when it was written. Lessig makes a good point in saying “You couldn’t—technically—have a perfectly burdenless generalized search in 1791” (2006, pp18)

Maybe they have amended their constitution since this piece was written. I they haven’t, they should definitely consider it. Sacrificing a small piece of privacy could prevent disasters down the road.

References

Lessig, L. (2006). Four puzzles from cyber space. In L. Lessig Code version 2.0 (pp 9-30). New York: Basic Books. [URL: https://www.socialtext.net/codev2/four_puzzles_from_cyberspace]

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