Computer Science for All, or Not

Whenever I see computer science compared to literacy, I have to kind of laugh. Being able to program will never be as important as the ability to read. While a basic understanding of coding could be very helpful, I don’t think it is even close to the same level as being able to read.

The biggest issues I have with the computer science for all movement is that it will subtract from somewhere else. Students already have tons of different subjects to learn about that I think are very important. There are some that I think could have less emphasis (I was never good at art), but in general, I think that most of the subjects that are taught are the right ones to teach and should continue.

This issue I think eliminates have too many computer science classes in high school and early on, but does not eliminate the idea of having an intro to computer science class to at least teach the basics. I think learning the basics of computer science could have really helped me when heading into college and have helped me pick my career path better. I am not the best programmer, but I think a quick computer science intro could have really helped me be better and understand the field more when heading here.

I think that the basics could really help but not much more than that should be taught in high school. One of the problems with comp sci is the lack of teachers. Teachers will never get paid as much as engineers in the industry. Since you need quite a bit of understanding to teach a complex subject like computer science to beginners, I think there will always be a lack of eligible teachers especially for the basics in high school.

I think a basic computer science class as a requirement makes sense in high school if you have the teachers to do so. I think it should be added in addition to everything else. While this puts more pressure on students, it is just one more class and I think the students will be able to survive. I think the class should mostly just be the basics in programming as well as a tiny bit of logic. I don’t think it needs to concentrate too heavily on any one part and should try and be fun for the students.

Before reading the articles I thought that anyone could do programming. I would love to see more of the analysis that says some students can’t code at all. I think that all students are capable of doing at least basic coding and while not everyone might be able to be really good, I think they can learn enough to get by. There is a big difference from being able to write extremely complex programs and learning the basics, but I think that having some amount of the basics would be good. I personally would only say that I have a grasp of the basics, but I think that it will be enough to serve me after I graduate since I don’t plan to code for a living. I learned a lot from my computer science education, but I do think it would be good if possible to have some exposure to it at an earlier time.

The Troll Among Us

The issue of trolling is a really complicated one that I struggle to decide where I even stand on. In my relatively short lifetime I believe that our country has become hypersensitive in a lot of ways. Saying just about anything can offend people and they will quickly send the lynch mob after you. I have said things in the past that have accidentally offended people or I just didn’t think out and have caused harm. It is not so much me being a bad person as some ignorance and some stupidity. Therefore I can understand the side which states that people should just toughen up and if you can’t handle a troll, don’t go on that area of the internet.

However, in other ways I can see how trolling is akin to bullying and should be stopped. The biggest challenge with trolling is where to draw the line. The gamergate articles shocked me and were very worrisome. That people would maliciously attack someone for pointing out what really is a flaw in gaming is both scary and sad. However, there is a difference from that and saying something that might not be the nicest to others, but is funny or shows a point. In general I view any trolling that is malicious and is intended to cause harm as unacceptable, but any that is done through ignorance and is not meant to hurt others in any way as okay.

Youtube comments are a scary place to be. The amount of swear words, insults, homophobic, sexist, and racist remarks are almost unbelievable. I think some of the worst parts of society are shown in Youtube comments. However, I don’t think that Youtube should have to spend money to monitor those comments. Unless a troll is directly attacking someone or a group of people, I think that the company doesn’t have to worry too much about it.

The trolls that really scare me are the ones that consistently choose to attack a single person or group and do so in ways that encourage self harm or violence. I think that having real names online will help to curb this sort of trolling as well as protect people.

I know that my stance is kind of in the middle and not hard for allowing people to say anything they want or for protecting people, but that is what I think is best. Some of the best advice I ever received from my mom was only write things on the internet that you wouldn’t mind your grandma seeing. I think if companies should at least try to make it difficult for trolls to target one individual and should protect privacy when they can as well as have users real names displayed if that will help to curb trolls. Similar to the privacy discussion my belief on anonymity is that I have nothing to hide and as long as I am somewhat protected, I don’t care who knows who I am and what I have said. I think this is an important stop-gap measure and while by no means perfect or flaw proof, I think it can help  to protect people from bullies and trolls that want to do harm online.

Automation and Globalization

Automation in combination with globalization is a very scary phenomenon. Automation and the power of software furthers the power of one individual to have a major impact on the world. Tech startups have the ability to leverage themselves to such a ridiculous point that they are worth billions of dollars even though there are only a few people that work at the company. However, this ability has consequences, especially when combined with automation. There is only a finite amount of wealth in the world, and if so few can have such a large impact, it means less income for everyone else.

Automation is able to increase the efficiency of a company, task, and almost anything else. This means McDonald’s will need less workers, and could have higher margins. This will help the corporate world, but could actually be detrimental to the working class. This means less workers and less people getting a piece of the pie. This could be a very scary proposition for a middle and lower class that has already been squeezed hard by the previous automation starting after WWII.

The middle class is on the decline while the rich are getting richer. I think automation and robotics will only continue this process. Fast food places, many restaurants, and most transportation could easily be automated in the next 20 years. This means millions of Americans could lose their jobs. A large proportion of the US populace could lose their jobs to automation in the next 100 years. This could lead to even larger problems with income inequality and destroy the American dream.

However, I think that new jobs and industries will pop up for the jobs that are taken by automation. In the same way that a hundred years ago we could never expect to have the computer revolution and the internet there will be something new that becomes the new industry. This won’t completely solve income inequality or provide full employment, but it will be a start.

I don’t think the Luddites are right. While innovation and automation will cause some loss of jobs, I think it will be a net positive. The standard of living will increase for most people and while the middle class might become smaller, I think in general the pros outweigh the cons.

I think automation in general is a positive and should be pursued. I think that automation in combination with a social and moral stance to help the poor and those that do not have enough can lead to a better world and be crucial for growth and the betterment of man kind.

Net Neutrality

As someone that aspires to be an entrepreneur, Net Neutrality is absolutely critical to my future. Without net neutrality it will become more and more difficult for small companies to grow and will become much easier for larger companies to leverage their size to bully out their competitors.

According to the FCC net neutrality says:  “A person engaged in the provision of broadband internet access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not impair or degrade lawful internet traffic on the basis of internet content, application, or service, or use of a non-harmful device, subject to reasonable network management.” This basically means that the companies are not allowed to throttle traffic to users and make companies pay for priority. However, as Netflix has argued, the order does not place the same restrictions on connection points which could lead to the throttling occurring there rather than at the end before the user.

The argument for net neutrality deals with cost and innovation. It is expensive to be an internet service provider and companies such as Netflix take a huge amount of the network up. The sunk cost of building the network could mean that it is hard to make money with broadband hogs like Netflix or Hulu about. The argument also deals with innovation. If the ISP’s do not have incentives to grow and build the network that come from the ability to throttle the network and use their power to have companies pay them for faster speed, there could be millions of jobs that are lost.

I firmly am on the side for net neutrality. While having the government regulate the ISP’s in this manner may mean the loss of millions of jobs and less innovation in the industry, I believe that net neutrality is critical to the growth of new companies and entrepreneurship. Without net neutrality it could become too expensive for startups to negotiate and pay the ISP’s to not bottleneck the network when accessing their sites and data.

I personally believe that access to the internet should be considered a basic legal right of all Americans. The internet is the library of the future and the amount of information and teaching it provides is extremely important. This coincides with my decision to support net neutrality and have no artificial bottlenecks be made in the system.

As I support net neutrality and believe that access to the internet should be a basic right, I think that the internet service providers should be treated like other utilities and monitored like a utility. There is already existing infrastructure in place that could be used as a backbone for this monitoring body. While this may have a small inverse impact on innovation, I believe that impact is a small price to pay in order to allow better access to the internet for all users.

Project #3: Security and Encryption

I think that encryption is not something that we should take for granted and is a fundamental right. I know that privacy is a major concern, but I believe that if the data is used properly and there area set of checks and balances to protect the people from abuse I don’t think that encryption needs to be needed at all.

Mostly my stances stems from the feeling that I have nothing to hide. If the government were to release my internet search history and everything I have done on the internet I wouldn’t be happy, but I really wouldn’t get in too much trouble, besides for maybe my parents getting mad at how many movies and TV shows I watch. I am no saint by any means, but I am not too worried about encryption and privacy. I can see how the lack of encryption is seen as a governmental invasion of our privacy, but as the world becomes more and more digital, operating in that world is a choice that you make.

Since I have nothing to hide, encryption is not a big deal to me. It does not affect how I view candidates and has no affect on how I vote. I know this is different then a lot of my peers, but it is just how I am.

I think in the end national security will win out over privacy. Already my generation is more and more comfortable sharing more and more information on the internet. I think this will continue to be true and eventually personal privacy will be a thing of the past. In some ways this extreme is kind of scary, but in others, I think it will help to make us safer. In an age of global terrorism, I think that national security will be picked over privacy, and as long as I am kept safe, I am pretty happy with that.

Copyright and Piracy

Copyright is a difficult topic in regards to computer science and piracy. Piracy is extremely prevalent especially among computer science majors and the more technologically adapt users of the internet. The DMCA has helped Hollywood and other media groups to protect their IP and has helped to grow the industry.

The DMCA protects copyrighted works from infringement and gives the aggrieved party a method to fight back if an area is infringed on. This can result in monetary fines, the works being taken offline, and many of legal possibilities. The DMCA also has the “safe harbor” section that has been critical to the growth of the internet. Section 512 states that companies like Youtube can not be held legally responsible for the content that is put on their website by third party users. This protects ISP’s and many other internet based companies from being sued into Oblivion by something an errant user does. Safe-harbor has been crucial to the growth and quick adoption of media and I believe is one of the best parts of the DMCA.

Copyright and its relation to piracy is actually a more complex issue than I had first thought. I had no idea that the DMCA protected companies with the safe-harbor act. Also just the ethics behind piracy are complicated and challenging to decide on what is right. I think in most cases it is wrong to pirate media from the internet and share it with others. I do believe that if the users already own the media and they are not being allowed to access it in a certain way and want to show it to their friends they should be allowed to. However, this is a really challenging issue.

I have used pirated movies and media. I always justify it by saying that I am in college and do not have the money for this media and they are making tons of money anyways. However this is a pretty weak argument. While these things are true, it is no reason to steal content from others. I should not do it, but I do anyways. It is something that is tough to stop once you know how easy it is to do.

I think one of the biggest reasons people use and steal copyrighted material is the ease of access. With all the illegal sites for streaming and stealing the material, it is often easier for me to get the material illegally than it is to procure it by legal means. I think that if material is easier to access and cheaper, it will be less stolen through illegal sites.

I think stealing copyrighted work is a problem, but not a major one. In order for the work to be stolen it usually has to be big enough to be at least slightly popular and likely is making the producer at least some money. I think this is a problem that will never be completely solved but with better access to content and more work on protecting content we can see the problem at least diminish in scale.

Patents and Trolls

A patent is a piece of intellectual property that protects an inventor and allows him or her special privileges with that invention. The definition of patents has changed as time goes on and with the advent of the computer. At this point code is not considered patentable because a patent has to deal with a unique process or invention. Code can be protected as a trade secret or possibly copyrighted.

A patent lasts 20 years and helps to protect the inventor. It is a moral protection in that it is an attempt to make sure that the inventor can make money off their work and can’t have it stolen from them. Patents also has economic reasons for existence. If the inventor gets financial benefits from their new ideas they are more likely to keep trying to invent and push technology forward.

I think that patents should be granted but they need to be changed. Currently the patents last too long and don’t actually protect small companies from larger companies stealing their ideas. It is too easy for a large company to just use their larger law team to make it impossible for a small company to fight to protect their patents. Patents should be easier to protect and not cost millions of dollars in lawyers to do so. Currently the big players in tech will regularly sue each other for immense amounts of money. This has no impact on their profitability and instead just shows any emerging company that they will have to compete with massive companies and fight them for legal patents.

One of the only ways to protect a patent and sue a larger company that is infringing on the patent is to use a patent troll. The companies that specialize in patent trolls will take the case and get partial ownership of the IP with the stipulation that they will pay the company that hired them if they win money in the lawsuit. I think this whole part of the system is wrong. The patent trolls halt innovation and are a detriment to people that are trying to invent new methods and products. However, I still think that patents should be given out and protected. If the patents are easier to protect a smaller company does not have to worry as much about a larger giant stealing the IP and when sued for the infringement just lawyering up with expensive attorneys that makes the smaller company unable to ever win the suit. By making patents easier to protect we can protect the little guy and increase innovation.

The other thing that I would want to change with patents is how long they last. I think patents should last a specific length of time based on the industry. For rocket science and long lifecycle industries I am ok with a patent lasting 20 years as it does now. However for a quicker product lifecycle industry I think that patents should be much shorter. When new phones with new features are coming out almost every month, it doesn’t make sense for one company to patent a piece of a phone and that patent lasts 20 years. 2 years is enough time to profit off the patent but is also a short enough time to not stop innovation and instead would encourage it.

In conclusion I agree with the concept of a patent, but think that they should only be protectable if the inventor is attempting to commercialize the invention. This would get rid of patent trolls. I also believe in making the longevity of patents based on industry standards, and that patents should be easier to protect. I think these changes to patents would increase innovation and help the economy.

 

Government Backdoors

The issue of security and privacy is a really sticky one that I believe has no clear answers. With the Patriot Act and the new age of global terrorism, it becomes harder and harder to decide what is okay in losing privacy and what is too much. I lean towards the security side even though it leads to me losing some privacy. My stance stems from the feeling that I don’t have anything to hide and I am okay with losing some privacy in order to increase safety for myself and others.

In the San Bernardino case, 14 people were killed and authorities search for reasons on how and why the killers did what they did. Apple refuses to unlock the phone mostly because they are worried about the precedent that it will set. They are also worried about the security risks that can come from creating a backdoor into the iPhones and other Apple devices. I feel that a possible security risk is better to have than a known security risk that happened.

One of the reasons that I am okay with some lack of privacy is that I am not doing anything wrong. As long as the information that is monitored never is released to the public, I am not as worried about the government searching through information in order to try and protect me and the country in general.

Big Brother is a valid concern and I can see how it is a little scary to give even more information to the government. However, if the information is used in a responsible manner, I think that the Big Brother concerns can be assuaged. I believe in order to make sure the information is being used in a proper manner  we should create a task force that monitors how the information is being used and if it is not being abused.

I think in a lot of cases security trumps privacy. We are living in such a virtualized world and lots of information is already shared or public knowledge. I am okay with my information being looked through by the government as long as they treat it with respect and don’t release it to the public.

Project 2: Job Interview Process

I think the most important part of our blog post is how it emphasizes starting early. I think I started moving in this direction too late and that may have limited my options and chances to find good jobs. However, I do have a great job that I am extremely excited for after graduation so even though I was late to prepare for job interviews and job prep in general, it still worked out really well for me. Even though it is important to start preparing early, I think that the most important advice I got about the job interview process was actually not to worry about jobs so much and especially getting one right after graduation. As an engineer, there is a huge pressure to have a job right away. However, it is important to remember that after graduation is the start of the rest of our lives. Therefore it doesn’t matter as much if you don’t have a job immediately after graduation.

I think that there is a problem with the new emphasis on jobs from colleges. While jobs are extremely important, I think that there is too much emphasis on jobs and less on learning. Students are pushed for grades and achievements to the point where learning is much less important than an A on the test. Notre Dame does a good job on helping students find jobs and gives them a lot of options to pursue that direction, but I think that the engineering and STEM groups put too much pressure on students to quickly find a job, rather than explore and look at jobs in a different manner. While I think it is good that we have so much support for helping to get jobs, I do think that there is a lot of pressure on students to get jobs that combined with other pressures in college can be detrimental to students. I think that students should be encouraged to pursue jobs, but not pushed towards it.

Bradley Manning Intelligence Leak

The Bradly Manning case is a complex one that deals with the leaking of classified documents that endangered US soldiers lives and hurt diplomatic foreign policy. He leaked 2 videos that showed the US military behaving in ways that it should not. If it was just these two leaks and the article about the US considering Wikileaks a security threat, I think that Bradley Manning would be justified in his leaking of the intelligence, especially if it is a spur of the movement move. However, he deliberately collected and leaked over 250,000 documents that contained sensitive information that could have helped Iraqi insurgents and hurt the country he had promised to defend and work for. I think because of how he deliberately put together the data and leaked it means he should be punished and I agree with what the government did in punishing him.

When leaking information, I think it is important to think about what is being leaked and why. The videos were mistakes by the US military and I don’t think the best thing to leak. It is okay for the media to see it, but it is not something that they need to see. If the US military was doing something like systematically targeting civilians or something else that is against what our country stands for, I think it would be justifiable and good for it to be leaked. However, I don’t think the videos show something that is malignant but rather a mistake. I don’t think these mistakes need to be leaked and it was wrong for him to do so. However, I think it could be seen as a grey area and as such, does not always justify a punishment.

The leaking of the sensitive documents is what I don’t agree with. In the articles it talks about how Manning was angry of his treatment as a gay soldier and was upset with the army. He got emotional about everything and lashed out against the country he was sworn to protect by leaking information. This is unacceptable, especially since the info could have hurt his country. Because of this and how he let his emotions hurt his country is why I agree with his punishment and think that the US government was justified in sending him to prison.

I think that each leaking case needs to be handled individually as there are different circumstances that deal with each one. I think that the Bradley Manning case was handled appropriately and in most cases I think that whistle blowers in the military should be treated harshly.