The Dark Side of Technology: Some Sociotechnical Reflections

In 2010 Jeff Baker proposed a panel for the 2010 ICIS Conference in St. Louis on the topic †Technologies that Transform Business and Research: Lessons from the Past as we look into the Future? (Baker et al., 2011), He invited Frank Land to be a member of the panel. Frank sought to explore some topics that were receiving a great deal of attention from the media and in particular the computer press as well amongst IS practitioners, management and academia. The topic was the apparently rapidly growing threat coming from the misuse or criminal use of information and communications technology (ICT) as well as the use of the technology in warfare (Cyberwarfare). The issues were discussed under a variety of labels but usually included terms such as security, privacy, risk and piracy.