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Final Blog Reflection for Senior Seminar

The most important parts of the course for me were: 1. Becoming more familiar with data privacy, data security and intellectual property aspects of software applications – We used case studies to talk about how data is stored, privacy policies, some security risks, and how intellectual property contention could impacts monetization in software and similar creative products. When starting a project with multiple people or in a public-private partnership where different entities or people have a role, it could be harder to decide on ways of monetizing the product if it gets to that stage. 2. Learning interesting things about beekeeping – This includes how honeybees stay active during the winter, swarm, and rely on warmer dry Spring weather among other things. I also learned that beehive location is highly sensitive information that is considered a trade secret by professional beekeepers. 3. Learning that people tend to change jobs frequently and use their existing network in professional...
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Thoughts on Final Topic Presentations

    Each of the other people in the class presented briefly on what they wanted to cover in their final topic. The topic I was most interested in hearing about were about dark design patterns in social media sites, but I was also interested in hearing more about the effects of quantum computing on cryptography. I already knew that sites used approaches that increase user engagement, but I was interested in hearing more about how it can be avoided. I don't use very many social media sites, but I think it would help me better understand why they are problematic and whether I should be avoiding more of the sites or using them differently. The quantum-safe cryptography topic is also interesting because this is an emerging technology that could address quantum algorithms for decryption. These topics were more interesting to me than topics covering LLMs and generative AI, which we have already talked about and have broad ethical issues owing to their tendency towards the unfair use ...
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CitizenFour Documentary Takeaways

 This documentary shows a situation I was not originally familiar with, but it helped me better understand the role of both government contractors and the NSA in mass surveillance both in the U.S. and internationally. Biggest takeaways: - There is a very big difference between releasing classified information indiscriminately and doing so through journalists, and journalists have a surprising but encouraging level of protection from prosecution for cooperating with people who willingly committing treason in the U.S. when performing investigative journalism. Journalists were involved with redacting information that might have been especially harmful for the U.S., and they helped set a narrative that was more favorable to Edward Snowden. - Mass surveillance is and has been common in the U.S., but also in other allied countries. It is accomplished primarily through government contractors in the U.S., and companies who collect data may need to share it with the government. - Edward Sno...
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Hivetracks and Bee Informed Partnership

New things that I learned from our class discussion on data access, security and intellectual property with Hivetracks and the Bee Informed Partnership: 1.   Honeybees will form a clump around the queen when they are swarming, and they will identify a new home based on information from drones leaving the swarm. 2.   Patents are used by companies to attract investment but take years to secure, and software can be patented, not just having copyright. 3. Honeybee hive locations in North Dakota are required to be reported publicly on a USDA site. 4. Some commercial honeybee operations with more than 500 hives are still managed without digital data collection. 5. Code ownership can be contentious for research projects and partnerships spanning different universities. This was surprising to me because I usually think of these as having limited direct business income even if things like Bee Informed Partnership interact with industry. The most surprising thing that I learned ...
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Short Reflection on Class Ethics Discussion

 Our ethical discussions in class suggest that most people think that respecting and or caring for others is a fundamental moral imperative, and they tended to focus on religion, sports, the military or other communities that they were a part of. I initially expected the discussion to shift more towards controversial opinions. Each person was only able to give a brief description of their ethics, and we didn't get into contentious topics related to privacy, personal autonomy and property, or highly political opinions. I was sometimes surprised by the seemingly simple ethical frameworks given, with the idea that treating others as one would want to be treated is the primary guiding principle. I think most people in the class would agree that some form of utilitarianism is a good idea, and they also agree that there should be importance placed on respecting people's autonomy but also following social contracts. 
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First Blog Post

I am using this post to describe my best in-class and out of class experiences.  My best in-class experience: The shell lab in CS Systems II where I created a shell was probably my favorite in class experience so far. It was very formulaic, but I learned a lot from it. Out of class experiences: I have a hard time deciding which out of class computing experience I enjoyed the most. One that stands out was going to the ICPC regional competitive programming contest at UNC Chapel Hill a few years ago. A picture from that event of Sam Arkle, Logan and I seems to still be up on the CS department homepage. I also had a good experience making a plant light interception and self shading model for a project with Dr. Neufeld's plant ecophysiology lab using the Blender API. More recently I've been working on a project making a 4d dungeon crawler video game with procedurally generated tunnels in C++. I've been working on it for a long time, but I could do it a lot faster if I were to do...
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