Electronic Voting

After reading the article by Kennedy, and seeing the documentary in class, answer the following questions:

1.What specific concerns do people have about the Diebold voting machines? Why are they not considered secure?

People don't think Diebold voting machines are secure because when their software was uploaded, developers didn't even check for security malfunctions. They were supposed to do a routine security check and they never did it. Memory cards can be altered so that they automatically change the voting numbers and information too. Pretty much any "hacker" can get in to its system and change everything up. The main computer can be used to change the information and no traces or evidence is left.

2.If you were placed in charge of monitoring elections in California, what would you recommend to ensure the process was as fair as possible? You might choose to focus on lower-level security issues, or more high-level policy and organization issues - either is fine.

For the voting process to be fair, there should be many organizations controlling the whole process. This way, there is a smaller chance for error-if one of the authorities messes up checking some security issue, the other one can check that. Also, if there is any corruption in one of the authorities, the other supposedly good ones would block that. I would try to improve all the machines, and actually make the votes go through more than one machine, if that is possible.

Intellectual Property

Write a blog post that explains your personal ethics regarding file-sharing, and identify what it is about these cases that (for you) makes some acceptable and some not.

- Downloading a song you don't own from a major label artist.

It is legally and morally incorrect, but everyone does this and always justifies it. You don't own the song, so you are still stealing it when you download it for free. This is bad sharing-you should pay for these songs when you download them. Even though the artist makes a lot of money and the label does too, you are still stealing. I think that it is fine to download this kind of song once in a while- artists make make millions of dollars for just making and singing a song and going on tour. I think that is ridiculous. There are people who work all day long and do so much more and receive nothing.

- Downloading a song you don't own from a struggling independent artist (who doesn't give you explicit permission).

This kind of file sharing is maybe the worst, even though I think its fine to do it once in a while too. I hate paying for music, but whenever there is a new struggling artist, I always pay to support their music and their jobs.

- Downloading another copy of a song you already own.

This kind of downloading is fine. If you have previously purchased this song and have some copy somewhere else, it is ok. It is hard to set rules on this one because its hard to prove that you have the song already. My reasoning for saying that this is fine is that it makes no difference if you download it again or if you copy the file from your hard drive or just copy the cd. The only way it would matter is that if the song you are trying to copy has protection encoding and you cant make a copy of it-- then you go download the same song for free.

- Shoplifting a CD from a store.

People who do this should be punished. I know that it is basically the same thing as downloading a CD, but it is actually completely different. Entire CD's are on youtube and many other sites for you to listen to whenever you want. You can't download them, but its almost like having the CD-you can stop, play, and pause it whenever you want. When you shoplift a CD from a store, you are going through a lot of trouble just to get that CD. You know you will be punished if you get caught. If the CD cost 25$ for example, you would be pretty much stealing money (even though the cost to make CD's is extremely low, and artists and labels are probably making 5000% profit or more from them)

- Downloading a song to "try it out" - if you like it enough, you'll buy the CD.

I think people that do this are very responsible and have integrity. Even though I think it is fine to just download music for free, trying a song out and then buying it is the right thing to do (if it is a struggling artist and he is not overpricing his/her product).

- Copying a CD from a friend, or ripping a CD you own to your hard drive, and then giving the CD away

This is fine just as long as you don't sell it. If you are making mass copies of it and making money from it, you should watch out because that is a bad thing to do.

- Making music you own available online to share with a couple of friends.

This is fine too- it is pretty much the same thing as burning a CD or copying it to a hard drive and then giving it away. As long as you don't make money from it, you are fine.

- Making music you own publicly available on the Internet, such as through KazAa or Limewire.

You should be a little bit more careful with this. I am not sure what to say about this because when you are making it publicly available to the masses, you are making the artist lose a lot of money. Instead of everyone being able to download it, they would have to pay for it.

- Creating and giving away "Mix CDs" of music you like to friends

This is perfectly fine. I don't see anything wrong with this. You are not making money off of it. It is obviously not exploiting the music, just SHARING it.

- Creating and selling "Mix CDs" of music you like to anyone who wants to buy them

This is not ok. You are making money off of something you didn't invent. If I made a painting I wouldn't like people to scan it and make money off of it.

Python Output

1)

a) 12
b) 42
c) 0
d) It multiplies a by b

2)

a) 5
b) 4
c) 7
d) It divides a by b

3)

a) strange: a = 6
b) weird: a = 8 b = 4
strange: a = 12
c) strange: a = 4
reallyWeird: a = 8 b = 4
strange: a = 12
d) downrightOdd: a = 3
strange: a = 3
reallyWeird: a = 6 b = 3
strange: a = 9

4)

a) 1
b) 3

Blog 3: Math

Decimal 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Hex 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F

Binary 0000 0001 0010 0011 0100 0101 0110 0111 1000 1001 1010 1011 1100 1101 1110 1111

1. Convert the following binary numbers to both hexadecimal (base-16) and decimal (base-10)
a. 1011 hexadecimal:B decimal:11
b. 10101 hexadecimal:15 decimal:21
c. 10010110 hexadecimal: 96 decimal:150
d. 1111111 hexadecimal:7F decimal:127

2. Convert the following decimal numbers to both binary (base-2) and hexadecimal (base-16)
a. 8 binary:1000 hexadecimal:8
b. 63 binary:00111111 hexadecimal:3F

c. 113 binary:01110001 hexadecimal:71

d. 97 binary:01100001 hexadecimal:61

3. Suppose that we want to download a 200 MB file. How long will it take on each of the following connections?

a. A modem that can download at 56 kilobits/second

200MB=204800 kilobyte=1638400 kilobits so, 1638400/56=29257.14 seconds, or 8.12 hours
b. A DSL connection that can download at 5 Megabits/second

200MB=1600 Megabits so, 1600/5=320 seconds, or 5.3 minutes
c. A high-speed connection that can download 10 Megabits/second

200MB=1600 Megabits so, 1600/10=160 seconds, or 2.6 minutes.

4. If we have an Internet connection that can upload 3 Megabits/second, and an MP3 is 60 Megabytes, how many MP3s can we upload in an hour? In a month (given a reliable connection)?

1 megabyte is 8 megabits, so 60 megabytes are 480 megabits, the connection can send it in 160 seconds. so in an hour there are 3600 seconds, so 3600/160=22.5 songs in an hour. in a month there are 2629743 seconds in a month so 2 629 743/160=16435.9 songs in a month.

Net Neutrality

1. What is the fundamental issue underlying the net neutrality debate?

The internet should be free; there should not be any rules that limit us to seeing normal websites, and ISP's should not control what we can see and what we can't see because of whatever deal they have made with some big company like google or yahoo (these companies are favored when there is net control). Basically, net neutrality is the use of the internet with no restrictions from the providers.

2. List two groups, organizations, or individuals in favor of net
neutrality. Fairly describe their arguments in favor of net neutrality.

Probably everyone that doesn't have anything to do with one of the big internet companies and that wouldn't make any profit off of restricting the internet supports net neutrality. Tim Berners-Lee (the creator of the internet) is in favor of net neutrality and his argument is that it is like not giving humans their rights. Its like taking away speech. Essentially, they are saying that the big companies want to do this to remove any competition they have. Everyone has the same rights and everyones information is as important as someone else's.

3. List two groups, organizations, or individuals opposed to net
neutrality. Fairly describe their arguments against net neutrality.

Comcast is one of the big companies that is opposed to net neutrality. Their argument is that the content in their websites and services is more important, and therefore they need a higher bandwidth than everyone else does. They say that if other peoples websites and services are so important, than they should pay too. Bob Kahn, one of the internet's co-founders, is against net neutrality. His argument is that with net neutrality there would be no innovation because no big companies would be fighting to have a better product. Companies would take much longer to invent a better service that people would pay better for.

4. What is your opinion on the subject?

I am double sided on the argument of net neutrality, but I am more in favor, especially because it would down-grade my whole internet experience. I don't think that it is fair for companies to be money hungry and ruin their clients' situations. It is true, that innovation would be faster with a controlled internet, but there would be innovation anyways with net neutrality.

Cloud Computing

What is cloud computing?

From what I understood, cloud computing is when you do anything that is based off the web. For example, an application that is based off of the web; not on your computer. All the activity you do should be somewhere else, not on your hardware; all you would need is an internet connection. Everything you do would be on a remote server. Basically, everything is virtualized and you can access it by just getting online; there is no need to have a special hardware to access whatever software or application you want to use.

What are the benefits and disadvantages of cloud computing for an ordinary computer user?

For an ordinary computer user, cloud computing can be one of the best things that has happened to them. Being able to access things such as google sites, docs, presentations, applications and other software through any computer has created an ease and mobility in everyones lives. Things such as checking email, looking for directions to somewhere, talking to friends, and looking at photos are all possible because of cloud computing. You can keep all your information "somewhere over the internet", and you dont need to have a hard drive yourself or any extra device. Some disadvantages are server crashes (you could lose all your information if you only have it stored somewhere online), security issues (you don't know who is reading or seeing your personal information).

What are the benefits and disadvantages of cloud computing for a start-up company?

The benefits and disadvantages for a start-up company are very similar to an ordinary persons'. A very important advantage is that they don't have to buy all the hardware needed to run their company; they can just pay another company with servers and they can keep all their information for them that will keep their business running. A very big disadvantage for a small start-up company is that if the servers crash, they will lose a LOT of money from all the customers that invested in their product.

What are the social dangers of cloud computing? That is, why might people be uneasy about the whole world's documents being stored on GoogleDocs instead of on local machines?

There are many social dangers of cloud computing; we trust that all our information is safe somewhere in the internet, when we don't even know where it is. If anyone gets to access your passwords used on the internet, you are in great danger. They can steal your money, steal your identity, and other things along those lines. If they were on local machines, you would be able to have more control over your information, but you wouldn't have the advantage of accessing them from wherever you want. Also, your valuable information might be deleted forever.

Welcome

This is my first blog. Just checking if it works!