The aim of the project is the systematic and case-oriented further development of the dual-use analysis method based on the evaluation of the dual-use analysis of social media analytics software.
When a product, software or technology is developed for a civilian, "good" purpose, it always runs the risk of being alienated for a military, potentially unethical and potentially even public-endangering use, the so-called dual-use risk.
Dual-use risks and potentials are already frequently discussed and evaluated in the areas of physics, chemistry and biology. This has resulted in research on (new) technologies or information that has the potential for a beneficial and harmful application, the so-called Dual-Use Research of Concern (DURC).
In the new project Dual-Use: IT Research of Concern, scientists are tackling the question of whether, in analogy to the DURC in the natural sciences, IT can be defined as an "IT Research and Development of Concern". To this end, approaches of the dual-use assessment are first systematized and checked for transferability from classical natural and engineering sciences to computer science, whereby the emphasis is on the process of software development. This is done through a literary as well as an empirical study. In the next step, an evaluation process will be designed and operationalized, which then will be tested and analyzed in software development as part of an ongoing research and development project focusing on social media analytics.
The results of the project will subsequently be published and integrated into teaching and research as an application-oriented method. The project is funded by the IANUS funding line for interdisciplinary research at the TU Darmstadt from January 2019 to December 2020 with EUR 60,000.

Information about IANUS-Förderlinie

Information about the field of study of Prof. Christian Reuter

Information about the field of study of Prof. Alfred Nordmann