Final Blog Post

     In this senior seminar course for computer science i would say that more then anything I've made philosophical observations about my own ethics and what i want to do with my life in the near future.  I decided that when i graduate i would do something i enjoy.  I really enjoy working on applications and web development.  Concepts involved in theory and systems work do not suit me at all and my mind would be far more productive in my own fields.
    With this in mind, i have set goals in applying for interviews and jobs this semester.  Learning how to talk to interviewers and potential employers will be critical to my job prospects.  I would like to believe that i am fairly well prepared to demonstrate my charisma, and therefore social ability required to work in a team.
     Another thing i learned was the importance of privacy on the internet and the dangers of information about people on it.  During the "creeping" assignment, i found out way more then i needed to know about my partner Rick.  What i found would have been good enough if i had seriously planned on stalking him or even trying to steal his identity.  As someone going into technology, my voice, as well as others in our field, will have to express our opinions on how we deal with these developing problems to security and privacy.
   

Intellectual Property Presentation by Casey Parks

I was not present for this presentation because i left for the holiday early to avoid snow if there was any, but from various other peoples inputs it was a pretty educational presentation.

     Intellectual Property is a huge issue in today's society.  In the past it was acceptable and even encouraged to copy each others work.  It was seen as flattering to have someone copy your work. With all the information out there nowadays its difficult to prove who developed what. I can see why it is a problem when it comes to paper-writing in classes and in journalism.  When a teacher is testing your knowledge by giving you an essay, if it was written by another it wasn't really a good test of your knowledge.
     Throughout history there have been those who make the exact same product that another company developed and became more successful then its actual developers.  I agree that this happening is wrong in general.  This is why the patent system is in place.  While i agree with it for the most part, patent trolling is awful.  People that withhold innovation so that they can gain lawsuit collection money.
     The concept of open source is really great.  Users can alter code to make it better but they sell it.  This protects the original creators right to their idea while allowing motivated users of the product to make custom variations to improve performance.

Development of Government Policy on Cyberspace

     In the public, the administration has always insisted that they are going to be transparent about their activities related to cyberspace, but time and time again they have proven themselves flip-floppers and liars. Obama advocated freedom on the internet and minimal regulation by the government, yet has given executive orders granting the government more power to perform cyber operations both inside and outside security. This has been further revealed very recently by whistle-blowers within the CIA, and the NSA.  There is a distinct difference between cyber security, and unwarranted spying on its on citizens which is a huge violation of their rights. "Those who give up their liberty for security deserve neither," said Benjamin Franklin.  In the interest of security we have been approving for years government dismantlement of our fundamental rights which include privacy.   

     The only power over the internet i believe the government should have is the power to remove the posting of child pornography and rape videos and the prosecution of those criminals.  Also the power to protect our critical infrastructure, which is a given.  They should have the same capabilities to to "creep"/spy on civilians as the rest of us and except for terrorism should not be able to hack citizens or install malware.

What did i find?

     Creeping has always been a thing since the dawn of social media.  Before all the security restriction on Facebook, Myspace, etc, it was very easy to find out information about people if they post it.  My partner for this creeping assignment was my buddy Rick.  As he is a friend on Facebook, i easily could use that to my advantage when creeping on him.  Assuming i wasn't his friend, however, it still was fairly easy to find information on him.
     Assuming i knew his name, by searching his name on the internet, i was able to find out a lot of information about him.  One of the first links to pop up on Google was his name.  I was able to find out the college he goes to.  Further searches allowed me to discover the fraternity he is a part of, and listed on that website was his major and hometown.  When i discovered his hometown it was easy to find out his address on websites like Spokeo.  This also listed his address and parents.  At this point i switched to creeping on his parents.  I found out where they worked and i was also able to find his family tree going back about two generations as well as the addresses both he and family have lived at which was about 4.  From this information i was also able to find out his previous schools and various events involving him at those schools. Finally i found his Linkedin which listed his qualifications in computer science.
     I would say that, despite our efforts to achieve privacy, it is still way too easy to find out information about people which is further reflected by the increase of stalking in the world.

Networked Communications

     Although from a philosophical standpoint i believe that there is no universal right and wrong, i do believe that there is a right and wrong because God has told us something is right or wrong.  That is to say, humankind without a god or moral background will not have an sense of what is right and wrong
There are a lot of ethical flaws in communications and networking across the globe.  I believe that the internet is a great place.  We learn, shop, and communicate via the internet.  I believe it is the correct way of thinking to keep it anonymous, relatively unregulated, and able to speak without fear of prosecution.  With that said some things should certainly not be OK.  Sexual conduction involving adults and children as well as blatant cyberbullying of people you personally know are just a couple of examples of things i would consider unacceptable.  The only censorship should be things like this.
     As much as i hate spam, ads, and malware, i believe that people have the right to use them.  Any problem that affects society as a result of its use is reduced by software developed by companies looking to rid potential costumers of their problem.  Gmail is one such company.  To encourage people to use Gmail and Google products they have filters to recognize spam and ads.  The ad-block add-on to Chrome gets a lot of donations simply because of the convenience of watching videos and visiting websites with annoying and noisy ads.  

5 ethics characteristics

I consider myself pretty cynical when it comes to ethics.  I believe that society accepts those who stand by the popular ethics they were taught growing up.  In this current generation intellectual property is a very important ethic.  300 years ago nobody cared, because it was the ultimate form of flattery.  Some societies accept murder and mistreatment of women, etc very differently then we Americans do.  Due to my belief that there is no real universal right and wrong, i chose characteristics that i believe reflects universally are considered ethical actually are.

Consistency - An ethical person will stand by their beliefs, not changing them for anyone.

Respectful - Respect of human life.  No matter who you are killing is bad

Responsible - Somebody willing to accept the consequences of their actions

Empathy - Going along with respect for human life and an understanding of others

Justice - They believe in justice by whatever standards justice means to their beliefs

I found these characteristics difficult to decide on due to my beliefs in no universal ethical right and wrong. 

The Last Lecture Randy Pausch

         The last lecture is Randy Pausch's key lecture to emphasize what he has to say before he dies which was a year later in 2008.  I believe Pausch's lecture was very inspiring to both parenting, teaching, and to living life as an innovative student.  As a parent, he found both imagination, criticism, and brick walls useful. Imagination and motivation will make a person innovative.  Criticism means that people haven't given up on you.  Brick walls and failure are great, according to him.  "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted."  If a person wanted something enough, they would find a way to break through that wall.
         As a teacher, Pausch seems brilliant.  He assigned work that allowed for a great amount of freedom and gave his students the capability to set their own bars.  He was blown away by their performance, and took his mentor's advice and didn't set the bar for their work.  I definitely approve of multiple department efforts in a classroom work.  In real life works this will always be the case Control Alt Delete...That was a pretty creepy yet amusing part of Pausch's lecture.  Those students did some fantastic work on their 3D environment.  
         As a student, i think i should find ways to break through my brick walls.  I do not want to break through most of them however.  I'm going to have issues graduating next semester if my grades don't look right.  If grades dont improve in some aspects i will likely require another semester.  Systems is one of the subjects that i find a brick wall in.  I've repeated twice different courses in that branch of computer science.  I feel like this brick wall has been good for me.  When i first started computer science i wasn't quite sure what i wanted to do in it.  I was willing to take a future job in almost any industry.  Over time i have found i was more imaginative and innovative in other areas then systems work.  That wasnt the only wall in CS that I've found.  These brick walls have made me realize what i want to do with my life in computer science. Something that I will enjoy being a part of will make my work all the better just like the 3D student team.

Hive Tracks ethical blog

               Bee keeping is an interesting and seemingly worthwhile hobby, but there are a few ethical issues which pose a threat to the maximum effectiveness of the project.  Honey bees are essential to our farming economy and with providing multiple foods available for human consumption.  With that said, they are dieing.  To combat this, beekeepers on hivetracks.com has a cloud based management tool to help the user keep records for each of their hives.  There are several ethical issues already with this system, which for the most part there hasn't been a problem with yet, but can expect to handle in the future.  It is not clear who owns and therefore control the data, which is a problem related to both copy-write and privacy.  There's also the matter of who owns the software used by hivetracks.  It is also not understood by the users how secure their data is.  Users know its located on a cloud but not much else if they even know what a cloud is.  As of right now, there are many bee hives shown on a Google map, which can be a privacy concern on its own.
                 beeinformed.org has been suggested to partnering up with hivetracks for better effects in the future. This combination would be very beneficial as beeinformed seems to have an informative data analysis system.  By combining two website features into one, you once again see the problem of intellectual property.  Who owns data, software, hardware, etc.
hivetracks, in the near future, expects to have an automated hive monitoring system on all its hives consisting of instruments inside/outside the hive.  This would be great for getting accurate data and assisting the beekeeper.  There are plenty of negative aspects to this.  The data automatically entered by the instruments could show neglectfulness by keekeepers among other things.  While this tool would be extremely useful, hivetracks would have to set policy and notice once again on who owns data and what can they divulge to the public or the government. 

Ethics

Ethics are an interesting thing in the world.  Each of us has our own ethics for every single aspect of our life. We create them based on our experiences and what we think is important.  My presentation to the class on ethics included my view as part utilitarian that focuses on making decisions that make people happy.  With this said morals and ethics also have a base in our upbringing.  Society from a young age uses positive and negative reinforcement to build our ethics and what makes us happy.  In other words, our happiness with our decisions is a direct result of what other people believe should make us be happy.  War is not approved of in this day and age.  The soldiers who have killed do not receive congratulations and approval as much as they receive pity.  Therefore the killing is considered a necessary evil instead of an honor.  This has only become a cultural thing in the past 200 years.  2000 plus years ago people are congratulated on their kills in war and even tried to bring back prizes like the armor of their kill back home for bragging rights.  This reinforcement of morals and of what makes people happy changes all the time.  2000 years ago homosexual relationships were approved in many cultures and in the past 200 years homosexual people "go to hell".  

In our career development presentation, I saw several important points that were addressed relating to cover letters, resumes, and interviews.

One important quality hiring employers look for is first impression.  The first thing an employer looks for when recruiting is whether or not the recruit looks interested in the position.  This means dressing up and look like you want the job.  The job should mean more to you then just a position you applied for.  In the interview itself this means that you should have done some homework on the company you applied for to reinforce your reasons why you would be the ideal hire for the company.  You should be able to talk fluently and show that you are capable of being social in a professional setting.

Resumes and cover letters are fairly important for getting your general information to employers.  When creating a resume include relevant details.  Don't include miscellaneous jobs and volunteer work if its not relevant to the job you are applying for unless it says something unique about your character.  Resumes should be proofread as well. If an employer sees careless spelling and grammar in something as simple but important as a cover letter or resume, what can they assume about your future professional work in the company.

During this presentation i learned quite a few more things about future employment and so in this stage of our education the career development center is there to help us make good resumes, cover letters, and interviewing preparation.

Ideal Job

As with any computer science student, my dream job is to work in game development or to work with a prestigious company like Google.  I am far from a computer science prodigy, however, and therefore will probably not get that kind of job right after graduation.  Assuming I graduate on time and everything goes as expected,  I will try to find employment in developing business applications in Charlotte or the Triangle.  My Capstone project should help me gain that position.  My partner and I are developing a stock market application that will present data in a more comprehensive way and help even the most inexperienced of users make more informed decisions in the stock market.  After gaining a job in a company that develops these kinds of applications,  I intend to work my way up and gain some valuable experience.  At some point i hope to get hired by a younger company like Google or a game development company.

Build a Computer

Build Your Own Computer

The Advantages
Building your own computer  might be the best technological decision you ever have to make.There are numerous advantages to building your own computer.  Most people buy pre-built computers from major companies like Toshiba, Dell, and, Alien-ware and while these companies make sure their computer parts work well together and are functional, they are generally more expensive and are less tailored to your specific user needs.  One great advantage to building your own computer is that they are easily upgradable.  If you have a failing part or you just think your computer performance would improve with a newer processor or some other part, its fairly easy to replace them if you know what you're doing.

Disadvantages of building your own computer
When you build a computer you have to do research on all the parts you intend to put in it.  In addition to research on price and specs, you must also make sure all the parts are compatible, and that they will fit inside the case.  Pre-built computers allow you to avoid the situation where you may have accidentally bought a incompatible part.  The only other disadvantage would be warranty.  Although there is a possibility that a specific part might be under warranty,  you would have to prove that that part was the problem in a failing computer.  Pre-built computers take the warranty issues out of the picture in case of problems.  Its easier to send in the whole computer when something is wrong then to diagnose your computer yourself or with a technician who might charge you an arm and a leg for a simple problem.

Consider Your Needs
First and foremost, you should consider your needs as a computer user.  Are you a gamer or just a casual user? Are you working in a potentially hazardous environment for a computer? One of the greatest advantages to building your own computer is in buying parts you as a user will need.  It allows you to focus on whats important instead of adding expenses in unnecessary places.  The most important thing for a gamer would obviously be the video card.  Do you have lots of big files?  If so then you probably need a bigger hard-drive.

The Complication With Piracy

The media has for several years now been pushing for a crackdown on online pirating.  After the Patriot Act and its violations of our privacy, legislation in the government meant to extend the governments control over what the American public can do over the internet are being opposed with a ferocity rarely seen by lawmakers. In addition to public protests of the recent bill SOPA(Stop Online Piracy Act), many companies like Google and Wikipedia staged blackouts, forums, and blogs attacking its legitimacy. Law enforcement knows that many people pirate but they are unable to do much when most of the population that actively uses the internet vehemently oppose restrictions and value privacy in their internet dealings.  The internet is very much against any restrictions or breach of privacy from the government and it has always been a sort of sanctuary for people who want to say something anonymously, or view something that the average person might judge them for.  Internet users see this as a breach of privacy like in the court case Mapp vs Ohio in 1961.(http://www.infoplease.com/us/supreme-court/cases/ar19.html)

Also the "problem" with piracy is that no one can really say how harmful it is to the various industries relevant to it.  Statistics show that pirates, in general, buy over 30% more then people that dont pirate. (http://www.techhive.com/article/2012121/pirates-buy-more-music-than-legal-downloaders-study-shows.html) So realistically pirates only take away from the potential revenue of the media they pirate.  Because of this statistic, the question then becomes: if these pirates were incapable of pirating, would they buy the products they pirate?  In my personal experience I would say no.

I am a pirate, not a very active pirate, but a pirate nonetheless.  I tend to pirate video games if I pirate at all.  Due to the lack of good PC demos, many gamers will pirate a game to test it out to see if it is worth our time.  If its not then usually we ignore or delete it from our hard-drive.  My most recent experience like this was with the game Endless Space, which i found too boring for my taste.  Most pirating gamers, however, will buy games that they decide is worth their time and money.  My most noteworthy experience with this was with the Indie game Mount and Blade.  I have probably spent at least a hundred hours on that game.  It is also apparent that Indie games in general are made popular by the people that pirate them.  This is how games like Minecraft became popular.  People found that it was a game worth buying and the creator is now extremely wealthy and already working on a new game.  This proves that pirating at the very least contributes to new creative material in gaming.

       

Phone Porn is Risky

Contrary to what many other article writers say, I AM here to judge you.  It would appear that sometimes people can't wait for their nightly porn and must resort to phone porn in a corner somewhere.  Phone porn is a lot riskier then it appears and people that view porn on their phones should consider waiting until they can get on their home computers where they typically have better malware defense.

Nearly 25% of all malware on phones comes from the visitation of pornographic websites although only 1% of all mobile traffic is porn. Clearly it is a lot more risky to watch porn from your phone; about three times as risky to do so. 

We are at a technological crossroad where in the near future more important financial transactions and exchanges of personal information via phone will be more common.  While most people still do their business transactions via home computer, malware designers target the widest audience they can for mayhem.  The more people that get phones capable of internet access and performing financial transactions, the more virus and phishing developers will target phone owners.  Pornographic websites among other websites can download malware on your phone designed to acquire your information and exploit it.  

How to tell if your phone is infected? The most common mobile malware is an SMS Trojan.  It typically takes the form of a fake app and while hidden from the owner sends SMS codes that bill the owner.  If your phone is infected by an SMS Trojan then check your bill.  It will be a lot higher than usual. Fake apps and ads may ask for your personal information. Also, just like on a PC, if your phone makes changes to your social networking sites like facebook or sends out emails without your permission you probably have some form of malware on it. 

As for trying to protect against malware, there are anti-malware apps for both Androids and iPhones.  Watch for changes in your bills and overall be more careful when visiting sketchy websites especially pornographic ones.