Impact of Computing

Data Review

IOC Conceptual Framework

Big Idea 5: Impact of Computing (IOC)

1. Beneficial and Harmful Effects

Computing innovations can be:
- Physical, like the robots in the video, or a self-driving car,
- Nonphysical computing software, like picture editing software, or
- Nonphysical computing concepts, like eCommerce.
A computing innovation includes a program as an integral part of its function.
A program is a collection of program statements that performs a specific task when run by a computer,
- Often referred to as software.
The purpose of a computing innovations is to solve problems or pursue interests through creative expression.
An understanding of the purpose of a computing innovation provides developers with an improved ability to develop the computing innovation.
Computing innovations are created to solve problems or pursue interests through creative expression.

2. Digital Divide

There is a lack of equal access to computing devices and the Internet based on socioeconomic, geographic, and demographic characteristics.
This is known as digital divide.
The digital divide raises issues of equity, access, and influence, both globally and locally.
The digital divide is affected by the actions of individuals, organizations, and governments.
Real world examples we discussed:
- Number of towers, cost of service, speed of repairs are all dependent on your location.
- Tonga went 13 days without any Internet access because of damage to underwater Internet cable caused by an oil tanker.
- Large, populated cities benefit the most (5G will only be in large cities where you can have more cell towers).
- Rural or small countries with little infrastructure suffer the most.
The digital divide is the gap between people and regions that have access to information and communication technology and regions that do not have access or have limited access.
Information and Communication Technologies include:
- Telephone
- Television
- Personal computers
- Internet
The digital divide raises issues of equity, access, and influence, both globally and locally.
The digital divide is affected by the actions of individuals, organizations, and governments.
The digital divide is a gap between many different groups, including:
- The underprivileged and the wealthy and middle class,
- City and rural areas,
- Educated and uneducated,
- Developed and undeveloped nations, and
- In areas that have access, there can still be a divide because of lesser experiences like lower performing devices, lower-speed wireless, lower-price connections, and limited access to content.

3. Computing Bias

When we create technology solutions for people like us, and no one else, we are introducing what we call bias.
It can be hard to create a computing innovation for people who have different experiences, abilities, and access than us, but we must be mindful of our lack of knowledge so we can reduce bias.
Making sure computers are accessible and fair for everyone to use is the goal of reducing bias.
One way we can do this is by implementing the design thinking process and focusing on a human-centered design approach as we create our computing innovations.
Interaction bias is when the computer is trained with datasets that contain more of one type of dataset over another (ex: more images of Caucasian faces over African American faces).
Latent bias is when an algorithm uses historical data or data that reinforces stereotypes to make decisions.
Selection bias is when a dataset over represents one group and under represents another group.

4. Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing is when a group of people work together to solve a problem, raise money, generate ideas, or complete a task.
The types of help or tasks that can be completed with crowdsourcing vary greatly.
Here are a few examples of different crowdsourcing applications:
- One of the most well-known examples of Crowdsourced information is Wikipedia.
  - The online encyclopedia is researched, written, and edited by volunteers across the globe.
- There are sites to Crowdsource funding –
  - An individual or organization can seek funding for causes through GoFundMe.
  - Kickstarter is a site that helps startups get initial rounds of funding from the public.
- And as we saw yesterday, companies (or individuals) can sponsor contests where people contribute ideas or vote on a decision:
  - Many of these crowdsourced contests and voting happen on social media platforms.
- There are also crowdsourcing platforms for jobs:
  - Amazon’s Mechanical Turk or Mturk is a crowdsourced job marketplace.
Another type of crowdsourcing is what is called citizen science.
One example of a harmful crowdsourcing practice is bitcoin mining.

5. Legal and Ethical Concerns

A lot of the software we use is proprietary or "closed-source".
Closed-source software is usually software that you have to pay for.
With proprietary software, the company that publishes the software retains the intellectual property rights to it.
The software is copyrighted and users who purchase it are limited in the ways they can use, distribute, and modify it.
It is called closed-source because users cannot see, copy or edit the source code of the software.
Open source software (OSS) is computer software where the source code is open to anyone to view, copy or edit.
OSS development rose to popularity in the late 1990’s.
OSS allows for collaboration of software development among multiple people/organizations.
Usually open source software is free.
Generally, the community agrees that with OSS:
The program must be freely distributed.
It must include the source code.
Anyone can modify it.
Any modifications can be redistributed.
Some of the benefits of Open Source Software include:
- Some people prefer OSS because they can examine and modify the source code - they can see exactly how the software works, and can modify it if they want.
- One of the biggest benefits to OSS is the fact that students, like you, can study the publicly accessible source code to learn how to create software. Students can also copy snippets of code or build upon existing code.
- Collaboration with others is also a bit benefit - programmers can share their work with others and receive feedback. When mistakes are discovered, others can correct the code.
- Some contend that OSS is more secure because it can be reviewed by a lot of people - with this constant review, programmers are able to find errors in the code and make it more secure.
- Similarly, because lots of different programmers can edit the source code and are continually working on it, it is believed that the OSS is more stable with more frequent improvements.
- Finally, OSS encourages community and collaboration. Programmers will work on software that they love which ensures their commitment to the product and its improvement.

There are some drawbacks to Open Source Software, and it’s not the right fit for many software products:

* First drawback is the ownership of OSS is not clear – if an individual or company wants to profit or otherwise "own" and fully control the intellectual property of their software, they will not be able to do this with OSS.
* People say that OSS is Free like a Puppy is Free.
* Meaning that there are a lot of ongoing operational costs to managing and maintaining open source software.
* Many OSS projects also lack guaranteed support or service level agreements.
* The community that loves the program and is continually improving it, may be able to answer questions, it isn’t guaranteed that their help will be accurate or that it will be timely.
* While this may be okay with programmers who are using the software, companies that choose to use the software will have to hire someone to help them (hence the continued costs challenge).

The nature of OSS is for it to change frequently because of the community working on it.

Some updates require users to learn the new changes and adapt to the modifications.
Additionally, because it is OSS, there is no guarantee that those who support it will always support it.
If the project is abandoned, users will quickly have a product that does not receive the necessary updates to stay effective.
Within the constitution, our founding fathers established laws regarding the ownership rights of creators and inventors.
Also known as copyright it is the legal protection provided to authors of "original works of authorship", including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works.
In short, what you create, you own, and you have the right to own it exclusively.
Ideas in your head are not copyrightable.
However, once you express your idea in a tangible form – on paper, in a recording, or even scribbled on a napkin – it is automatically copyrighted if it an original work.
As you will notice from the list, protected works focus on creative works.
The chair you are sitting in, for example, does not fall under copyright laws.
Instead, its design would be covered by patent laws.
However, if your chair had an artistic element – a unique carving within the chair for example – that artistic element could be copyrighted.
Creators of original works have the right to own their work exclusively, meaning no one else has the right to it.
Writers, artists, musicians, and even computer programmers have the right to control what happens to their original work and who can use their creations.
Owners of an original work can reproduce their work to the public, create new works based off of their original work, and perform or display the work.
As soon as you create an original work in a tangible form, you have copyright status.
Creators do not have to register their work with the U.S. Copyright Office to obtain copyright status or be protected.
However, if you want to pursue an infringement claim in court, your work will have to be registered.
Once you have created an original work, your copyrights lasts 70 years after your death.
If you created the work for hire, the corporation has copyright protection for 95-120 years from publication.
Plagiarism and copyright infringement are two different acts.
Plagiarism focuses on the protection of ideas.
The use of material created by someone else without permission and presented as one’s own is plagiarism.
In school, it usually means you are turning in work that you claim is your own, but it is really someone else’s.
It commonly happens when you are working on a paper and you take information from an article or book without properly citing the source.
Proper citations in your schoolwork is an important academic skill.
Outside of school, plagiarism can happen when one person publishes work as if it was her own when really it is another author’s, artist’s, etc.
Plagiarism can have legal consequences.
Copyright is the protection of "fixed expressions of ideas".
As we have already discussed, it focuses on original, creative works.
It is a legal concept.
Within certain parameters, like fair use, an individual can copy the original work under certain circumstances.
If you violate the parameters of copyright law, you can be sued for copyright infringement.
Although it might be the right thing to do to cite your source, you cannot avoid copyright infringement by doing so.
Sometimes an owner wants to share their work with everyone without any limitations (or only some limitations).
In those instances, the owner of the original work is providing others explicit permission to use his work in certain ways.
Some examples of legal ways to use materials created by someone else include:
- Creative Commons - a public copyright license that enables the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted work. This is used when the content creator wants to give others the right to share, use, and build upon the work they have created.
- Open source - programs that are made freely available and may be redistributed and modified.
- Open access - online research output free of any and all restrictions on access and free of many restrictions on use.

6. Safe Computing

Personally Identifiable Information, or PII for short, is information about you that identifies, links, relates, or describes you.
It is unique information about you.
PII includes your:
- Name
- Social Security number
- Age
- Race
- Email
- Phone number(s)
- Medical information
- Financial information
- Biometric data (height, weight, etc. that you enter on health apps for example)
- GPS location
When you sign up for a discount, use a coupon at the drug store, complete a personality quiz, track a run or workout on your phone or watch, or post on social media, you are giving your personal information to an organization who you do not know and are not aware of their policies to keep your data private.
It is important to understand that your personal identifiable information and your online activities are being collected.
Your information can be collected in a variety of way.
Search engines can record and maintain a history of searches made by users.
Search engines can also use search history to suggest websites or for targeted marketing.
Websites can record and maintain a history of individuals who have viewed their pages.
Devices, websites, and networks can collect information about a user’s location.
Programs can collect your location and record where you have been, how you got there, and how long you were at a given location.
Information posted to social media services can be used by others.
Combining information posted on social media and other sources can be used to deduce private information about you. "Cryptography" is the use of codes and ciphers to protect secrets and messages.
Lessons we can learn from the history of cryptography:
- They point out that even though people may learn that a cipher method has been cracked, they are slow to discover (or acknowledge) that the cipher is no longer secure.
- People would feel more secure if it was proven that an encryption algorithm was unbreakable, but without proof we can only trust and hope all is well.
- No matter how solid in theory a cipher is it will not be used if it is inconvenient or expensive; people will take the risk of a weak system rather than struggle with a complex one.
- It sounds counter-intuitive, but cryptographic method, especially if its for widespread use, should be regarded as reliable if it is widely known and seems not to have been broken, rather than if it has been kept secret. You can’t keep a secret forever so it is better that you design a system that will remain secure even if everything but a small amount of information (the key) is exposed.
The risks of insecure encryption arise from three forces acting together:
- The high speed at which news of insecurities travels among experts,
- The slow speed at which the inexpert recognize vulnerabilities, and
- The massive scale at which cryptographic software is deployed
"When a university researcher discovers a tiny hold in an algorithm, computers everywhere become vulnerable, and there is no central authority to give the command for software upgrades everywhere."
Symmetric key encryption involves one key for both encryption and decryption.
Additionally, public key encryption pairs a public key for encryption and a private key for decryption.
The sender does not need the receiver’s private key to encrypt a message, but the receiver’s private key is required to decrypt the message.
Finally, certificate authorities issue digital certificates that validate the ownership of encryption keys used in secure communications and are based on a trust model.
Authentication is the process of verifying to a computer that you are who you say you are.
What are some of the different methods of authentication you use?
- Password
- PIN
- Biometric data – thumbprint, eye scan, facial recognition
- Key
All of these fall into three main methods of authentication – called Factors of Authentication, which are really the different ways in which a person’s identity can be validated:
1. Knowledge factors: Something the user knows:
  - Password, PIN, Secret question (i.e. your mother’s maiden name)
2. Ownership factors: Something the user has:
  - Key, Badge, Mobile phone, Driver’s License
3. Inherence factors: Something the user is or does:
  - thumbprint, retinal eye scan, facial recognition, signature
Multi-factor authentication involves two or more authentication factors.
2-Factor authentication uses 2 different authentication factors to verify the identity of a user.
For example, using a bankcard (something the user has) along with a PIN (something the user knows) provides two-factor authentication.
Most things today require 2-Factor Authentication (2FA) which is much more secure.
A computer hacker is a person who uses computers to gain unauthorized access to data.
Hackers use something called Malware to infiltrate computers.
Although encryption protects data by encoding it, your computing systems have errors or design flaws that can be exploited to compromise them.
Left unprotected, your computers, tablets, phones, or other digital devices can get a computer virus or malicious software (called malware) that attacks your device.
Malware is software intended to damage a computing system, take partial control over its operations, steal or delete information, or propagate itself through your network.
A computer virus is a malicious program that can copy itself and gain access to a computer in an unauthorized way.
Computer viruses often attach themselves to legitimate programs and start running independently on a computer.
A computer virus is one type of malware.
Other types of malware include spyware, worms, and trojan horses.
Spyware is software that is intended to steal your personal information, including passwords, email addresses, and other personally identifiable information.
Spyware frequently uses keylogging to steal your PII.
Keylogging is the use of a program to record every keystroke made by a computer user in order to gain fraudulent access to passwords and other confidential information.
Spyware can also activate your webcam without your knowledge.
A Worm is an application that can spread from device to device without attaching itself to other programs.
It can copy itself hundreds of times, quickly harming any device that has it.
For example, a worm may copy itself onto your email account and then send a copy to all our contacts.
A trojan horse application is named after the Greek story where the Greeks hid inside a large wooden horse to sneak into Troy undetected.
Similarly, a trojan horse application pretends to be a safe program, but it is purpose is to attack your device.
In addition to malware, hackers can attempt to access your PII using other methods of deceit.
One method is phishing.
Phishing is a technique that attempts to trick a user into providing personal information.
For example, you may receive an email that appears to be from your credit card company saying it has de-activated your account for non-payment.
The email prompts you to click the link and enter your personal information to re-activate your account.
In reality, it is all a lie, and the personal information you enter can then be used to access sensitive online resources, such as your real credit card account, your bank account, or your email.
Unsolicited emails can also have attachments and forms embedded in them that can be used to compromise the security of a computing system.
These emails can come from unknown senders or from known senders whose security has been compromised.
Phishing techniques can also be used on a webpage that looks legitimate but is not.
A malicious link could be disguised on a web page.
Additionally, websites where you can download proprietary games, music, or movies for free often contain malware.
Data sent over public networks can be intercepted, analyzed, and modified.
One way this can happen is through a rogue access point.
Rogue access points are installed on a network without consent from the network administrator.
They are wireless access points that give hackers unauthorized access to secure networks.

Computing Systems and Networks

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