Final Writing Assignment

As you come to the end of your time working with your community partner, think back to the beginning of the semester and try to remember how you felt before your first visit to their site. How have your opinions (of a community, yourself, or your abilities) changed? What has remained the same?

Week 13 Writing Assignment

Discuss the scenario in the Baase book, question 9.27, p. 482.

Week 12 Writing Assignment

Write a blog entry about your community partner. It should contain (at least) the following information:

• What is the organization, and where are they located?
  
• What population do they serve?
• How big is the organization?
• How long have they been in existence?
• Are they a local organization, national, or international?
  
• What is their mission?
• What are you doing with them this semester?

You might want to talk with your community partner to find out the answers to some of these questions.

Week 11 Writing assignment

1. Read Chapter 8 of Baase and answer question 8.26.

2. Chapter 7 of the Cress book deals with failure in service-learning projects: what happens when things go wrong. Read this chapter and identify a problem, challenge or difficulty that you've had in your service-learning assignment. Apply the D-U-E process discussed in the book.

Digital Information Writing Assignment

There are a large number of sites, such as Amazon, Netflix, iTunes, Rhapsody, eMusic, Hulu, Joost, Pandora, mp3.com, and many others, that are moving into the business of selling or providing digital information. Choose at least three sites (it can be these ones or different ones) that provide legal access to online media such as music, games, movies, or TV shows and write a blog post that addresses the following issues:

1. What is the site's revenue model? That is, how do they make money?
2. What freedoms does the consumer of this information have? What can he/she do with it?
   

Week 7 Writing Assignment

Read The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric S. Raymond and write a blog post that answers the following questions:

• What does Raymond mean by the 'cathedral' and the 'bazaar' style of software development?
• According to Raymond, what is necessary for a successful bazaar-style project?
• Do you think Raymond's characterization of these styles of development is accurate? Why or why not?
• In your opinion, what sorts of projects tend to be successful open-source projects? What is it about them that causes this?
• In your opinion, what sorts of projects are better suited for commercial development? Why is this?
  

What is LAMP?

One of our projects in this semester's class will be to collect data for San Francisco's TechConnect
database and upgrade their website. (you can see the old one here). We'll talk more about the details on Monday - in preparation for that, I'd like you all to become familiar with the ideas behind LAMP. A good place to start is OnLAMP.

Write a blog entry that explains what LAMP is. What do each of the letters stand for? Why do people think this approach is so interesting and effective for building applications?

Feb 11 Writing Assignment

1. More Privacy. (From Baase, 2.36). Philosophers and ethicists often distinguish between positive and negative rights. A positive right is the right to be allowed to do something (for example, the right to vote). A negative right is the right to be protected from something (for example, the right not to be convicted without a trial). Baase provides a longer description on page 35.

Consider privacy, particularly digital privacy, from each point of view and give some examples and/or analogies of what it would mean for privacy to be either a positive right or a negative right. In your opinion, which formulation of privacy is more appropriate and why?


2. Read Chapter 3 of Cress and write a blog entry corresponding to the first two bullet points in Exercise 3.4 (p38). (you may skip the part about ALPs)

Feb 4 Writing Assignment

Due Feb 10 at 11:59 pm.

Please prepare a blog entry on each of the two following topics:

1. Privacy. (From Baase, 2.42, p 133). Last year, Google released Street View. Among other features, there are quite a few photos of people in places or circumstances that they might prefer not to be public. (you can see a few examples here) Many people felt that this was a privacy violation. How did Google address potential privacy concerns? Do you feel that their response was adequate?
(Note: you will need to do a little research to answer this question.)

2. Service Learning. Please read Chapter 1 of Learning Through Serving. One theme that's addressed in the book in the concept of educating students to be responsible citizens. What do you think this means? (You may find exercise 1.2 helpful in thinking about this.) Do you think it is reasonable and appropriate for colleges to educate their students about engaged citizenship, or should college focus solely on academics?

Jan 28 Writing Assignment

Due Feb 3 at 11:59 pm

Please write a blog entry that addresses each of the questions below. (you can do it as two separate entries if that's simpler) Please be sure to address all parts of the question.

1. Explain the difference between symmetric-key and asymmetric-key encryption. You should be sure to include the following details:

• How are keys distributed with each technique?
• Why is each technique cryptographically secure? In other words, what needs to be done to crack a ciphertext encrypted with each algorithm?
• How can each technique be used to confirm a sender's identity?
  
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of each approach?

2. (This is the more open-ended question) One of the points I'll make repeatedly this semester is that it's important to learn about the social and ethical implications of technology because you will be the people developing and implementing this technology in 5/10/20 years.

Write a blog post about your career plans and goals, at least as well as you understand the. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? 10 years? What sorts of things are you doing today to help reach those goals?

Welcome to the Computers and Society Blog

Welcome CS 480 students!
Here's where I'll post readings, writing assignments, and other class-related material.