Reading 11: Self-Driving Cars

I believe that self-driving cars will be ready for the roads before the general population is ready to embrace them. It has been proven that self-driving cars are safer than human drivers, however they’re not perfect, as shown by the fatal Tesla accident in Florida. The benefits of self-driving cars are easy to see. Without our hands off the steering wheel and eyes off the road, we could be reading a book, watching a movie, taking a nap, etc. Long work commutes would be forever changed. However, the current self-driving cars are still a ways from that reality. Even though Tesla says their cars have autopilot, their cars aren’t ready to drive completely on their own. The article “Tesla’s ‘Autopilot’ Will Make Mistakes. Humans Will Overreact.” explains, “The company (Tesla) says: ‘Always keep your hands on the wheel. Be prepared to take over at any time.’ But if you call your system ‘Autopilot,’ you can’t be surprised when some drivers watch a movie while using that mode. We all want self-driving cars so badly that some people are behaving as if they’re already here.” The article “What we know and what we don’t know about accidents involving self-driving cars” talks about the accidents that Google’s self driving cars have been involved in. The director of Google’s self-driving car program, Chris Urmson, said that not once were their autopilot software the cause of the accidents. In each instance, it was human error. He also explains that even if it wasn’t their fault, the accidents are something to learn from. I read the comments on this article, and someone made an interesting point. They said that it seems unfair to judge the abilities of self-driving cars based on accidents while the software is still in development and not available to the general public. Just like any software that is still in its testing phase, of course there are going to be some errors and crashes. Google has not come out and said that their cars are ready for the roads outside of California yet, so why are we surprised when their cars make mistakes. This same article also brought up the moral dilemma of: “What would happen if an autonomous car were faced with a decision to either drive off the road into a pedestrian or to collide with a school bus full of children?” It also mentioned that self-driving cars are better at driving within the speed limit and sensing vehicles in blind spots, so the chances of this situation are less likely than if a human driver were at the wheel. But if this situation were to occur, how would you hold a self-driving car accountable vs. how would a human be held accountable? I think the issue that many people would have with the self-driving car and its decision to hit either the bus or the pedestrian, is that this choice was programmed. Someone at one point decided the logic that would made this decision. So would the programmer be held accountable?

 

Reading 10: Trolling

I used to think that trolling meant when someone on the internet would comment or post about something that they didn’t necessarily believe, or something that was false to bait people and get a reaction. Most of the time the reaction was outrage. After completing the readings for this week, I understand that trolling can take many forms. Trolling involves harassing and bullying others online. I thought that the article “Trolls Are Winning the Internet, Technologists Say” described the struggle of stopping/containing trolling well. It stated, “The uncomfortable truth is that humans like trolling. It’s easy for people to stay anonymous while they harass, pester, and bully other people online—and it’s hard for platforms to design systems to stop them. Hard for two reasons: One, because of the ‘ever-expanding scale of internet discourse and its accelerating complexity,’ as Pew puts it. And, two, because technology companies seem to have little incentive to solve this problem for people.” The anonymity of the internet is an essential aspect of trolling. Some people feel very powerful behind the mask of a made-up username. However, an article that I found on The Atlantic titled “Should We Feed the Trolls?” made an interesting point explaining that we are still our real selves on the internet, even behind any veil of anonymity. “The Internet is the real world. What you say online is still you saying something—even if you’re shielded by an anonymous account; even if you’re saying it just to be provocative, or performative, or God only knows why else. You on the web is still you, just like you on the telephone is you. Technology doesn’t magically make a person’s behavior inauthentic, or pretend, or inconsequential.” I think that many trolls believe the opposite. They can post a mean comment and not concern themselves with any of the consequences or anyone else that the comment might impact.

Trolling is a hard thing to prevent. As mentioned above, the internet is constantly expanding and companies have little incentive to stop it. When I was reading about trolling and how to stop it, I was reminded of an app I had seen pitched on Shark Tank (http://abc.go.com/shows/shark-tank/video/pl5539712/VDKA3415199). It was an app called ReThink that aimed to prevent cyberbullying. It is a simple concept. Once downloaded, if a user is about to post a comment on social media or send a text that contains hurtful language, the user will be asked if they are sure they want to send it. Even after being alerted that their post might be harmful, users can still decide to send it. However, according to ReThink’s website, “Research shows that when adolescents are alerted to ReThink their decision, they change their minds 93% of the time.” (http://www.rethinkwords.com/whatisrethink). This app is targeted toward a younger audience. Even though many trolls are adults, I believe that software like this is a step in the right direction. It also teaches kids from a young age that their words on the internet have power.

Project 03: Reflection

The cloud can be a great place to store your data and offers many benefits. It allows for easy data sharing, and this data can be accessed from any number of devices. By using Dropbox, I can take notes on my iPad during class, then get home and view them on my laptop. The cloud is also good for backing up data. If I lose my phone, I know that all of my pictures I have taken can be recovered from my iCloud account. Lastly, the cloud has more storage than I would personally ever need. I no longer have to worry about my phone running out of storage. Very few apps store data locally anymore. However, there are some downsides to using the cloud. Not all cloud services are secure. If someone figured out my iCloud password they would have access to my contacts, calendar, photos, etc. You must rely on the cloud service providers to secure your data. While above I said that the cloud has more storage than I would personally need, access to unlimited storage is not free. For example, Dropbox gives you 2GB of storage for free. If you need more than 2GB, you will be charged monthly. Lastly, there are still limitations in how you can use cloud services. Sometimes a service might not meets all the needs of an application you are developing or using. I have evaluated these tradeoffs. For me, the advantages of using the cloud far outweigh the disadvantages. My devices don’t have the capabilities to store everything locally. It would cost more for me to buy an additional hard drive, or to upgrade my phone’s storage. Currently, I don’t pay for any cloud services, for I have not reached any data storage limits. While security is always somewhat of a concern, I trust in the companies I store my data with.

In the future, I believe that I would use my own cloud services only if I believed the data I needed to store was extremely sensitive. However I don’t see this happening, and I believe that cloud services will only become more secure. I would have a hard time giving up the convenience of the cloud. I am currently developing an iOS app for a class. I am using Back4App (a Parse alternative) to store all of my app’s data. The convenience and reliability of the Back4App service is great. I would not want to put the effort needed into hosting my own private cloud service.

I do not believe you have the moral standing to complain about encroachment on your privacy when you consciously give away your information to third party services. I believe that it is your responsibility to know who you are trusting your data with.

Network Neutrality

Net Neutrality is the idea that the government and internet service providers should treat all data on the internet the same. They cannot discriminate against data based on its content, the users receiving the data, the application running, the type of device being used, etc. The goal is to have a neutral, free, and open internet. The idea is to treat the internet like any other utility that we use at home, like water or electricity. The companies who provide you with water and electricity do not have any say over how you consume these utilities, they just charge for providing you the utilities.

The internet service providers (Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, etc.) and internet content providers (Netflix, Google, Facebook, etc.) are on opposite sides of this argument. Companies like Netflix are for net neutrality. They don’t want internet service providers to abuse their power and manipulate users’ access to their content because of personal interests. For example, Comcast and Netflix have been at odds over this in the past. Comcast said that streaming Netflix for its users is a large burden and causes a lot of traffic. They wanted Netflix’s partners to pay to have the content delivered on their network, which would help Comcast update its infrastructure. Another motive that Comcast would have for challenging Netflix would be that Comcast has its own on demand streaming service that competes with Netflix. Comcast could give preferential treatment to their own service and slow down users’ ability to stream Netflix.  Netflix argued that Comcast simply provides users with internet and its up to the users what they want to access on the internet. While Netflix could probably survive paying extra fees to ISPs to let users access their content, new content services would not be able to grow, and this could slow innovation.

Internet service providers’ argument again net neutrality is that they should be able to distribute their network how they wish. In the Comcast and Netflix example mentioned above, Comcast would argue that if Netflix is using up all of their bandwidth, Netflix should be the one to help fund the updates to Comcast’s system to properly handle Netflix’s traffic. Those opposed to net neutrality believe that AT&T and Verizon and other ISPs should be able to compete and innovate in free market without regulation, and that this would be beneficial to users. However, most people typically can only choose among one, sometimes two, ISPs anyway because of their location.

Both sides to the argument believe that net neutrality stifles their ability to innovate. The article “Is Net Neutrality Good or Bad for Innovation?” explains, “Economists have done plenty of modeling on net neutrality over the past eight years, but there isn’t a strong consensus about whether keeping it or throwing it out would be best for consumers, innovation, or the economy. ‘Nobody has much data,’ admits Gerald Faulhaber.”

While reading the articles about this topic, I flipped sides multiple times. I found it interesting that both sides are still unhappy with the current rules. The article “An Introduction to Net Neutrality: What It Is, What It Means for You, and What You Can Do About It,” stated “Proponents think the rules aren’t strict enough and that the ISPs have gotten ‘exactly what they wanted’, while the anti-net neutrality camp think that the internet companies are being too heavily regulated.” ISPs are unhappy with the regulation, and content providers believe there still needs to be more regulation, for things like mobile devices. Mobile ISPs are still not subject to the same net neutrality regulations. In the end, I believe that users benefit from a more open internet and shouldn’t have to worry about their access to content being impacted by the personal interests of private companies.

 

Corporate Conscience: VW Emissions

The concept of corporate personhood is that a corporation has some of the same legal rights and responsibilities as a human person. A corporation can be a legal identity apart from its employees, owners, shareholders, etc. The article “If Corporations Are People, They Should Act Like It,” explains that “this separateness means that shareholders are not held liable for the debts of the corporation” and also “this separateness is what makes capital markets possible.” A social ramification of corporate personhood is that after the lives of investors or any one else involved with a corporation are over, the corporation still exists on its own. This allows people to make long-term investments in a company that aren’t tied to a specific group of people that are linked to the company. An ethical ramification of corporate personhood is that it can be used to hold companies accountable.The article “If Corporations Are People, They Should Act Like It,” used the example of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. Without corporate personhood, there would be lawsuits against specific people from the company linked to the accident, and presumably none of those individuals would be able to compensate for all that was damaged and impacted by the spill. However, with corporate personhood, the entire corporation can be held accountable.

I believe that what Volkswagen did was unethical. According to  the article “Volkswagen: The Scandal Explained,” the result of using the defeat device in the cars was that “the engines emitted nitrogen oxide pollutants up to 40 times above what is allowed in the US.” Volkswagen lied to its customers and its dealerships, cheated on emissions tests, violated the Clean Air Act, falsified statements, and committed fraud. From the articles I read, I do believe that Volkswagen was sufficiently punished. The company plead guilty to fraud, obstruction of justice, and falsifying statements in a $4.3 billion settlement with the US Justice Department. According to the article “Volkswagen pleads guilty in U.S. court in diesel emissions scandal,” in total, VW agreed to spend up to $25 billion in the US to address claims from owners, environmental regulators, states and dealers and has offered to buy back about 500,000 polluting U.S. vehicles.

If corporations are afforded the same rights as individual persons, I believe they should be expected to have the same ethical and moral obligations and responsibilities, specifically in the context of the Volkswagen emissions scandal. I mentioned one of the ethical ramifications of corporate personhood above with the example of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The VW scandal is very similar. Because of corporate personhood, the entire company is held responsible instead of a few engineers or executives that are blamed for the creation and use of the defeat devices. The article “DOJ indicts 6 Volkswagen executives, automaker will pay $4.3 billion in plea deal” states, “Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell said that VW Group executives were largely responsible for the scandal, describing a company culture where ‘lower-level people’ expressed concerns and ‘higher-level people’ decided to move forward with planting the illegal software.” This additional information affirms that the entire corporation should be accountable for what happened, and not just a select group of individuals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Internet of Things

When I saw that we were talking about the Internet of Things, I was reminded of a tweet I had recently seen: 

With the Internet of Things, I often wonder when it begins to make our lives harder, rather than easier. One of the motivating factors behind developing devices that can connect to the internet is to make people’s lives easier. Most of these devices do make our lives easier, however I believe there is a point where this stops to happen. With many devices, there is a learning curve. For example, in the tweet above, I’m assuming the person who sent that text would say that their life has been made easier by setting up the lighting in their house using that app. I think that the person who received the text would disagree.

I do believe that programmers should address the security concerns regarding the Internet of Things. However, as was explained in the article “Internet of Things’ Security is Hilariously Broken and Getting Worse,” making a device more secure means it costs more. It states, “Consumers do not perceive value in security and privacy. As a rule, many have not shown a willingness to pay for such things.” It almost seems like it is easier for programmers to address the issue by proving that a device can be hacked after the fact. I found the article “Hackers Remotely Kill a Jeep on the Highway—With Me in It” interesting, but also scary. For me, the scariest part of the article was not the fact that the Jeep could be hacked, but the fact that Chrysler didn’t have a great solution to their insecure UConnect feature. The article states, “Unfortunately, Chrysler’s patch must be manually implemented via a USB stick or by a dealership mechanic.That means many—if not most—of the vulnerable Jeeps will likely stay vulnerable.” The hackers were trying to protect people by testing out the limits of the hacking. Maybe Chrysler is actively still working on producing a safer, more secure alternative. However, I believe that most car manufacturers will continue to release the minimum viable product, even if it is unsafe.

I also believe that the government has a responsibility to address these security concerns. I thought that the rating system mentioned in “Internet of Things Security is Hilariously Broken and Getting Worse” was a good solution. This would allow consumers to make a more informed decision. Consumers deserve to know the security details of what they are buying, even if they do not understand the exact technical details of its security.

I believe that the world with billions of internet capable devices is inevitable, especially as younger generations age (again, see the tweet above). Younger generations are used to things being connected to the internet, and the work that goes into setting these devices up and learning how to use them is not daunting to them like it is to many in the older generations. However, the security of these devices is a real issue. As mentioned in the article where the Jeep is hacked, insecure devices could kill people. I don’t believe that the Internet of Things is a bad thing, but an insecure Internet of Things is very, very bad.

Snowden

In 2013, Edward Snowden leaked a large number of top-secret documents from the NSA to journalists, who then leaked it to the public. Some sources say the documents number over a million. The content of the documents varies from information on the extent of the US government’s domestic and foreign surveillance to what forms of encryption the NSA can decrypt.

I am somewhat torn about whether what Snowden did was the right thing to do. I believe that the public deserved to know some of what he leaked. However, I do not agree with how he leaked the documents. In an interview with John Oliver, Snowden claims to have read and understood each of the documents that he obtained, and leaked, from the NSA. If this is true, I believe that he should have done one comprehensive release of the information he found most important. Orin Kerr talks about why Snowden didn’t have a bigger impact on American politics in the article “Edward Snowden’s Impact”. He states, “I don’t think the Snowden disclosures have caused a major shift in how the public thinks about national security surveillance. The question is, why? As I see it, a significant reason is that the message of the Snowden disclosures was muddled by their diversity and volume.” He argues that a single narrative would have resulted in a single, stronger response. Instead, what Snowden leaked was broken up into many different stories and narratives by various journalists that were released at different times. I also believe that Snowden should have leaked the documents on his own. By giving them to journalists, he passed on the great responsibility of handling the top-secret information to people who probably had additional agendas other than informing the public. Also, Along with Snowden releasing all the information himself at once, I believe he should have filtered out most of the content. In my opinion, a lot of the information that was leaked was either insignificant, or simply did not need to be known by the public. For example, one document detailed which forms of encryption the NSA can and cannot decrypt. I think it is assumed by the public that the NSA deals heavily with encryption. Why does the public need to know exactly what the NSA can decrypt? Isn’t it in the best interest of the country for the world not to know what the NSA can decrypt? In the Op-ed “Why President Obama won’t, and shouldn’t, pardon Snowden” Geoffrey Stone is quoted saying, “I think if [Snowden] had only disclosed the existence of the second 215 metadata program, then one might be able to make the case he did more good than harm because there were reforms adopted because of his disclosures.” I believe that Snowden would have been ethical in his actions if he had handled the documents as I described above. As for whether or not he should be pardoned, I haven’t settled on an opinion.

Interview Process Guide: Reflection

I believe that each section of the guide is important, but some sections are definitely more important than others. I believe the two most important are Preparation and Interviews. The Preparation section gives various sources, like books and coding challenge websites, that each of us found useful for preparing for our interviews. This section also gives some great tips on how to create a resume. The Interviews section contains the most detailed information. It explains what to expect in  each of the various possible rounds of an interview process and also gives some advice. I believe that this section gives the best overview of what the timeline of the interview process can look like, from the first phone call to the final round and office visit.

Looking back on my experience with the interview process, I wouldn’t change too much, but I would have put more effort into my search for internships the summer between Junior and Senior year. I believe the more effort you put into finding an internship that you love, the easier it is to find your perfect full-time job. The best case scenario is that you receive a return offer from your internship, and you take it. Even if you don’t return to your internship for full-time, internships are still a great way to know what type of company you want to work for, and what type of work you want to do.

I believe that the Notre Dame CSE department could make some small adjustments to the curriculum to better prepare students for technical interviews and jobs. I would personally like the idea of an elective course that computer science juniors, or even sophomores, could take. I don’t think it is necessary to make this type of class a requirement course for all computer science students. Some of the content would not apply to many students because not everyone is going into a software development position. Some students are going into consulting, some are going to graduate school, etc. The course could include things like mock interviews, whiteboarding interview prep, reviewing key topics, resume building, etc.

The next adjustment that I believe could be made is not an adjustment to the CSE curriculum, but more of an adjustment to the students’ mindset. I wish I had gone through the data structures, computer networks, etc. courses knowing that most of what I was learning would come up again and again in interviews. I would have definitely taken better notes and tried to absorb all of the information I was being taught. Each of the topics that I had to study outside of class in my interview prep, I was taught in class. But I still had to refresh my memory. I don’t believe that this is an issue that the CSE department has to deal with directly, and I don’t know how exactly to attack this issue; maybe its just a personal one.

 

Project 2: Interview Process Guide

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-uycc9R1O7YRVB2T2VkWFBTdU0

The Challenger

The root cause of the Challenger disaster was the failing performance of the O-Rings in cold temperatures. The O-rings were used to seal the rocket boosters. When their seals failed, hot gas escaped, which ignited an external fuel tank. There was knowledge of issues with the O-rings failing in this way, however the colder temperatures also enhanced the issue. There were engineers from Morton Thiokol (the company that manufactured the rockets) who warned of this issue in the cold weather the night before the launch. The issue was that they didn’t have concrete data that this would be a real issue, or at least any numbers that NASA saw as convincing enough to postpone the launch. One engineer, Allan McDonald, refused to sign the launch rationale document, which he now says was the smartest thing he had ever done.

I found the best explanation of what went wrong in a video at the very bottom of the How Challenger Exploded, and Other Mistakes Were Made article. It is a short documentary titled “Major Malfunction” that covers both the Challenger explosion, and the failed Colombia shuttle reentry in 2003. The video showed where the O-rings were located on the rocket boosters, and also how the gas escaped. The documentary also does a good job explaining some of the politics and other motives that contributed to the decision to go through with the launch.

Roger Boisjoly was one of the engineers from Morton Thiokol that strongly advised against the launch of the Challenger. Before the night of the launch there was a conference call where Thiokol recommended to NASA to postpone the launch due to the unusually cold temperatures. After the failed launch, Boisjoly was deemed a whistleblower for releasing information about what happened to the public. At the time there was an ongoing commission that was looking into the cause of the disaster.  In the blog, Remembering Roger Boisjoly, Challenger Disaster Whistleblower, it explains, “The investigation took a new direction after February 9, when the New York Times published a front-page story (‘NASA Had Warning of a Disaster Risk Posed by Booster’) citing concerns about O-ring failure expressed in documents it had obtained from an ‘anonymous solid fuel rocket analyst.'” This analyst was Boisjoly.

I believe that he was ethical in doing this. The truth needed to come out. Before he leaked the information, attention had been diverted away from the possible root of the issue being the O-rings. In the end, the commission concluded that the O-rings were the cause of the failed launch and explosion, but did not blame any of the engineers. The blame was placed on the flawed decision making process. In each of the articles that I read, Boisjoly was applauded, and even called a hero. I believe that he did the right thing. The retaliation that he, and Allan McDonald, received was horrible and they did not deserve it. I found that Vivian Weil had some interesting points about retaliation in the blog Remembering Roger Boisjoly, Challenger Disaster Whistleblower. She explains how retaliation is one of the main features of what defines whistleblowing, but also how it points to the moral complexities of whistleblowing. Without any fear of retaliation, I believe there would be many, many more acts of whistleblowing.