You are being recorded and transcribed.
Approximate overview
Academic/Scholarly
Cultural
Peer
Saturday, 2024-04-13, 9:00–noon, Tennis Courts. Men’s Tennis vs. Cornell (College).
Wellness
Misc
Do you recommend that we waitlist ASAP?
Yes. Sometimes, that’s the only way you’ll discover that the system thinks you have a conflict.
Do you know what happened with SelfService?
Nope.
What happens when you click “Do not click THIS button”?
As best I can tell, it attempts to register you for all of your classes, fails (since they are all waitliested) and tells you that.
How many credits can I preregister for?
As many as you want. But it could be dangerous.
How do I tell what classes I’ve waitlisted?
I have a “List View” in addition to the “Calendar View”; the list view makes it easier to check things.
Will I get into a CS class?
That’s what we’ve been told. Everyone who is a declared CS major will get into a CS class.
Sam’s math: We have 80 majors in the class of 2025 and 70 in the class of 2026. That’s 150. We have 188 slots in course above 208. So there should be at least one slot for everyone. If those were the only factors, 38 students would get two CS classes. Assume 15 CS majors are studying abrod in the fall. That means we 188 slots for 135 people, so 53 will get two courses.
And maybe there will be slots for rising second years.
We have been encouraging CS major to preregister/waitlist for every section they might be able to take, so numbers are wickedly inflated.
I was looking at the rubric/checkmarks and it said that I had to pass E and M tests.
Hah! They are top-secret tests. Which may not exist. I’ll try to look and see if I gave the graders a tester and then send it to you.
Remind me if you haven’t heard by Saturday night. Remind me again if you haven’t heard by Sunday night.
Success: Merge sort with big partitions and Quicksort with “smaller” partitions.
Success: Blow off class.
https://www.acm.org/code-of-ethics
We will read these aloud so that we reflect a bit more about each.
TPS questions!
“Duh, this is obvious. Why would you bother to write it in a code?”
Unfortunately, some things you consider obvious aren’t obvious to everyone. (Explanation can also help.)
Sam, why are you asking us to do this?
Because I think you have an obligation to act ethically as professionals and I therefore have an obligation to get you to consider what that means.
Modified from https://ethics.acm.org/code-of-ethics/using-the-code/case-dark-ux-patterns/. (Please don’t look there for analysis.)
The change request Stewart received was simple enough: replace the web site’s rounded rectangle buttons with arrows and adjust the color palette to one that mixes red and green text. But when Stewart looked at the prototype, he found it confusing. The left arrow suggested that the web site would go back to a previous page or cancel some action; instead, this arrow replaced the button for accepting the company’s default product. The right arrow, on the other hand, upgraded the user to the more expensive category; it also silently added a protection warranty without asking for confirmation. Stewart suggested to his manager that this confusing design would probably trick users into more expensive options that they didn’t want. The response was that these were the changes requested by the client.
Shortly after the updates were released into their production system, Stewart’s team was invited to a celebration. As a result of these changes, revenues at their client had increased significantly over the previous quarter. At the celebration, Stewart overheard some of the client’s managers discussing the small increase for refunds by users who claimed that they didn’t want the protection plan, but there weren’t many. One manager noted several complaints from visually impaired users, who noted that the mixture of red and green text obscured important disclaimers about the product. “So what you’re saying, then, is that the changes worked as planned,” quipped one of the managers.
TPS: What should Stewart do (or have done)? What ACM principles are relevant?
Resign from the ACM. Stewart has clearly violated the ACM code of ethics.
Quit. Stewart’s employer has violated the ACM code of ethics.
Blow whistles (and be fired). “4.2 Treat violations of the Code as inconsistent with membership in the ACM.” You’re going to be fired, you probably won’t be hired again. Agh!
Raise my concern to my manager. (Stewart did that.)
Start looking for other jobs. “2.7 Foster public awareness and understanding of computing, related technologies, and their consequences.”
More thoughtful whistleblowing. Gather evidence. Talk to lawyers.
I doubt we’ll have time to cover this one.
Modified from https://ethics.acm.org/code-of-ethics/using-the-code/case-malware-disruption/. Please don’t read the analysis.
Rogue Services advertised its web hosting services as “cheap, guaranteed uptime, no matter what.” While some of Rogue’s clients were independent web-based retailers, the majority were focused on malware and spam. Several botnets used Rogue’s reliability guarantees to protect their command-and-control servers from take-down attempts. Spam and other fraudulent services leveraged Rogue for continuous delivery. Corrupted advertisements often linked to code hosted on Rogue to exploit browser vulnerabilities to infect machines with ransomware.
Despite repeated requests from major ISPs and international organizations, Rogue refused to intervene with these services, citing their “no matter what” pledge to their customers. Furthermore, international pressure from other governments failed to induce national-level intervention, as Rogue was based in a country whose laws did not adequately proscribe such hosting activities.
Ultimately, Rogue was forcibly taken offline through a coordinated effort from multiple security vendors working with several government organizations. This effort consisted of a targeted worm that spread through Rogue’s network. This denial-of-service attack successfully took Rogue’s machines offline, destroying much of the data stored with the ISP in the process. All of Rogue’s clients were affected. No other ISPs reported any impact from the worm, as it included mechanisms to limit its spread. As a result of this action, spam and botnet traffic immediately dropped significantly. In addition, new infections of several forms of ransomware ceased.
TPS: Was the response appropriate? Ethical? What principles would permit the security vendors and government organizations to write such software.