Chapter 8 - Computers
In Polite Society:
Social Implications of IT
• Discuss examples of how social networking
technology can improve society
• Describe several tips associated with netiquette
and explain the benefits of following them
• Give the requirements of a good password, and
how to achieve them
• Name three permitted/not permitted uses of
licensed software
• Discuss what rights are granted to
owners/creators of material that is copyrighted
The Power of the Crowd
• The Internet has brought substantial
changes to society
• Positive or Negative?
• Social interactions have been extended well
beyond the experiences that previous
generations could have.
• We will consider a few examples that have
ostensibly brought “positive change”
Crowdsourcing
• Refers to solving a problem or achieving a
goal by combining the contributions of a
large, unconstrained volunteer population
• Wikipedia is perhaps the most famous of the
crowdsourcing enterprises
• The goal is to build a database of all (?)
knowledge through a global effort
• Issues: Control, Cliques, Deletionism
Be a Martian
• Volunteers help NASA by tagging images
from the Mars rovers
• Crowdsourcing is a new phenomenon
made possible by the “free” and easy
communication enabled by the Internet
• “Crowd” is obviously important because it
increases the number of people working
on a project, a benefit for the people with
the problem
• Issues?
Be a Martian
• By opening up the project to a wide
variety of people, participants will have
a wide variety of skill sets
• Volunteers might actually be faster and
more efficient at the task!
• Their skills and knowledge might lead to
a better solution, as Wikipedia proves in
most cases
Crowdsourcing
• So, what’s in it for the participants?
– It’s fun
– Earn points, win prizes
– Participants receive a sense of satisfaction
that they are contributing to a project
– Many projects require skills that are more
challenging than watching TV
– Issues?
Foldit
• Foldit is a game program in which
teams compete to fold a protein
• Proteins get all twisted as they float
around in cells.
• How they fold largely determines how
they work (medicine doesn’t “know a
protein” until it knows how it folds)
Foldit
• Foldit program
works on proteins
that are important to
AIDS, cancer, and
Alzheimer’s
research
• Using Foldit, the
structure of the
protein associated
with the AIDS virus
was solved in three
weeks
Freerice
• Freerice has a
vocabulary game
(also others) :
• The player is given
an English word
and four possible
definitions
• Picking the right
answer donates 10
grains of rice
Kickstarter
• People with creative projects pitch their
ideas:
– They say what they’ll do
– How much money they need to do it
– Why it’s important, etc.
• Donors can contribute toward the goal
• If the goal is achieved the project is
funded; otherwise, the donors get their
money back
Out on Good Behavior
• The online world we live in today is
different in many ways than the real world
many grew up in
• Our range of interactions is much broader;
we may never meet face-to-face with the
online people
• Families and relatives usually influence
our online behavior very little
• Unintended consequences? Concerns?
Out on Good Behavior
• We can be anonymous on the Internet,
so no one knows if we behave
badly…Right?
• We are not entirely anonymous online.
There are means to get the identities of
people on the Internet
• We all want to enjoy the benefits the
Internet gives us, so our daily uses of the
Internet should encourage us to behave
Improving the Effectiveness of Email
• Problems with email and online comms:
– Conveying emotion
– Emphasis
– Conversational pace
– Ambiguity
– Flame-a-thons
– Spam
– Scams
Conveying Emotion
• Difficult to convey subtle emotions
using email
– Medium is too informal, impersonal,
and casually written.
– Conversational cues are missing
– Good Writing still important - consider classic
letters
• Emoticons are (somewhat) popular
– Tags a sentence indicating the emotion we
mean to communicate
Emphasis
• Typing for emphasis can convey the
wrong meaning
– Text in all caps can be interpreted
as yelling
• Email is still largely ASCII based and
may not allow italics or underlining
– Asterisks or underscores can
replace underlining
Conversational Pace
• Asynchronous medium makes
dialog difficult
– For interactive purposes (like negotiation)
synchronous medium like telephone may
be best
Ambiguity
• Text can be interpreted in ways we
don't intend
– People often don't proofread what they
write in email to avoid ambiguity
Flames
• Flame is slang for inflammatory
exchanges
• Flame-a-thon is ongoing exchange of
angry emails
• When angered by email, it's best to
delay answering until you cool down
Netiquette (more rules in the book)
• Originally rules to promote civilized email usage
• Now interpreted more broadly: civilized behavior in
any of the social settings on the Internet
– Ask about one topic at a time
– Include context (quote previous text as needed)
– Use an automated reply when away (careful!)
– Get sender's permission before forwarding email
– Use targeted distribution lists (don't send latest joke
to everyone you've ever emailed)
– Posted Content lives forever! Like a bulletin board.
Please, Don’t Be Offended
• The “Offensensitivity” perspective can
be summarized as follows:
1. Your post will be seen by people all over
the world, and you will see posts from
people all over the world
2. You can easily and unintentionally offend
them; they can easily and unintentionally
offend you
Please, Don’t Be Offended
• The “Offensensitivity” perspective can
be summarized as follows:
3. The “problem” is our different cultures,
social norms, backgrounds, religions,
assumptions, and so forth. You’re not
wrong; they’re not wrong. And they are no
more likely to change their thinking than
you are. Be tolerant. Be respectful.
4. Are norms and standards relative or
absolute?
Expect the Unexpected
• Expecting the unexpected is a valuable
survival skill in life and in computing.
• When something unexpected happens,
we should ask
– “Why did that happen?”
– “What’s going on?”
• An essential skill in the social world of
computing is, Expect the Unexpected
The Onion
• The Onion is a humor magazine
specializing in news satire
• It produces “news” stories that are
almost believable
• Rather than checking an unbelievable
story by asking if it makes sense many
people simply believe it and repeat it
Suspicious Activity
• Other kinds of online activity are of greater
concern.
• Is your software:
– “acting”
strange?
– “behaving” unusually?
• These could be indicators of a software problem
such as disk fragmentation, or a computer virus
infection
• If the behavior continues after a reboot, you might
need some help
Authentication and Passwords:
Are, Have, Know
• The Role of Passwords
– To limit computer or system access to only those
who know a sequence of keyboard characters
– To help track who did what - protect the innocent
• Breaking into a Computer without a Password
– Trying all possible passwords algorithmically
would eventually find correct password, but
software usually limits the number of tries
• Forgetting a Password
– Passwords are scrambled or encrypted and
stored, so system administrator usually can't tell
you your password if you forget it
Guidelines for Selecting a Password
• Don’tchoose something easily guessed
• Should have at least 8 characters (if possible)
• Mix of uppercase and lowercase letters,
numbers, punctuation characters, symbols like
% and *).
• Avoid “dictionary words”
• No personal association (like your name)
• Phrase-to-password “algorithm”
Heuristics for picking a password
• Select a personally interesting topic
– Always select passwords related to topic
• Develop a password from a phrase rather
than a single word. (Or use phrase)
• Encode the password phrase
– Make it short by abbreviating, replace
letters and syllables with alternate
characters or spellings
Changing Passwords
• Should be changed periodically
• Resets/ “Security” Questions
• Managing Passwords
– Using a single password for everything is
risky; using a different password for
everything is hard to remember
– Passwords can be recycled
• Make good changes to good passwords or
• Rotate passwords
– Password safe or “keychain”
Viruses and Worms
• Virus - a program that "infects" another program by
embedding a copy of itself. When the infected
program runs, the virus copies itself and infects other
programs
• Worm is an independent program that copies itself
across network connections
• Trojan is a program that hides inside another useful
program, and performs secret operations
– May record keystrokes or other sensitive data, or load
malicious software
• Exploit is a program that takes advantage of security
hole (Say in an Internet browser )
– Backdoor access enters computer and reconfigures it for
remote control
How to "Catch" a Virus
• Email attachments. Do not open attachments
before checking:
– Is this email from someone I know?
– Is the message a sensible follow-up to the last
message from the sender?
– Is the content of the message something the
sender would say to me?
– Is there a reason for the sender to include an
attachment?
• When in doubt, be cautious - save and scan
How to "Catch" a Virus (cont'd)
• Copying software from an infected computer
• Peer-to-Peer Exchange
– Downloading files from unreliable sources
• New Software
– Any software is a potential source of
infected code
– Most software distributors are careful to
avoid infection
Virus-Checking Software
• Free and Shareware scanners exist - AVG
• Three companies are McAfee, Norton, and
Sophos, Inc.
• Programs check for known viruses, worms,
etc. May also use heuristics.
• New viruses are created all the time, so
update often
Phishing
• Password harvesting fishing
• “Social Engineering”
• Users are sent SPAM emails asking for credit card
or banking information, or even just passwords.
• Message is disguised to appear to be from
a bank or other company
– Often reports a security problem the user needs
to address
– When the user clicks legitimate looking link,
they are linked to bogus sites set up to steal the
information entered
What Can Be Done About Phishing?
• Never respond to requests for personal
information like passwords via email; legitimate
businesses do not request information this way
• Do not click on links or pre-typed addresses. They
can be spoofed (faked); type the URL yourself.
• Check to make sure the website is using
encryption - Lock Icon, etc.
• Routinely review credit card and bank statements
for unusual activity
• Report suspected abuses to proper authorities
Protecting Intellectual Property
• Intellectual property is any human creation like
photograph, music, textbooks, cartoons, etc.
• Licensing of software
– You don't buy most software; you lease it
– Commercial Licenses gives you the right to use
personally, but not sell or give away
• Try before you buy
– Shareware allows you to download and try software for
free, then pay the person who built it if you like it (honor
system)
• GPL - alternate license, allows almost any use, as long as
you distribute the source code of any changes you make.
(Based on Copyright Law)
Copyright on the Web
• A person automatically owns copyright of what he
creates in the U.S. and most nations
• Copyright “temporarily” protects owner's right to
– Make a copy of the work
– Use a work as the basis for a new work
(derivative work) (exception for satire/parody)
– Distribute or publish the work, including
electronically
– Publicly perform the work
– Publicly display the work
Copyright on the Web (cont'd)
• Free Personal Use
– You are free to read, view or listen to
protected work
• When is permission needed?
– Information placed in public domain is free
for anyone to use (Creative Commons.)
– Otherwise you must get permission
from the owner of the copyright
Copyright on the Web (cont'd)
• The Concept of Fair Use
– Allows use of copyrighted material for educational or
scholarly purposes, to allow limited quotation for review or
criticism, to permit parody
• When Is It Fair Use? Depends on several factors:
– What is the planned use?
– What is the nature of the work in which the material is to
be used?
– How much of the work will be used?
– What effect would this use have on the market for the
work, if the use were widespread?
Copyright on the Web (cont'd)
• Violating the Copyright Law
– You break the law whether you give away
copyrighted material or sell it
– Commercial use usually results in
higher fines (Could even result in criminal
penalties - but rare.)
• Alternatives: Public Domain. Creative
Commons, Original material, Others?
Ensuring the Reliability of Software
• Safety-Critical Applications (systems that support
life or control hazardous devices
or materials)
– Hardware failures can be avoided or resolved
using redundancy
• Have three computers perform all
computations of safety-critical system
• Compare results - 2 out of 3 rule
– Burn-in
• Most errors show up after a few hours of
operation
Software Failures
• How can programmers be sure their
programs work correctly?
– All reachable configurations (states the
software can get into), cannot be
examined for correctness—there are too
many
– A program is said to be correct if its
behavior exactly matches its specification
– What can we do about the fact that we
can't prove correctness?
Software Failures (cont'd)
• The Challenge
– Accept that software may contain bugs.
Monitor usage, be alert to unusual
behavior and be prepared to limit the harm
they can do
– Demand high-quality software, refuse
buggy software, and be prepared to
change to better software
Software Failures (cont'd)
• Fail-Soft and Fail-Safe Software
– Fail-soft means the program continues to
operate under stress, providing a possibly
degraded level of functionality
– Fail-safe means the system stops functioning to
avoid causing harm
• Perfectly safe software is just as impossible as
perfectly correct software; there is always a risk