Electronic Voting

What specific concerns do people have about the Diebold voting machines? Why are they not considered secure?

People don't consider Diebold machines secure because of several reasons, firstly they keep their code hidden and secret, raising peoples suspicion about the integrity of their code, secondly, their have been several instances where their machines have 'malfunctioned', such as when a machine counted votes backwards resulting in a negative score for one of the candidates. Finaly, it has been shown that the results can be easily manipulated/hacked to make a candidate win illegitimately.

If you were placed in charge of monitoring elections in California, what would you recommend to ensure the process was as fair as possible? You might choose to focus on lower-level security issues, or more high-level policy and organization issues - either is fine.

I would chose to focus on high level security because it plays a bigger part in the final count. For several people that may manipulate the machine on the voting floor to vote several times, this would have very little impact on the final vote, but if the vote totals were edited at the top then everyone's votes wouldn't have counted as they all would have been edited.

Python Output

1. Given the following python function definition:

def combine(a, b):
result = 0
while b > 0:
result = result + a
b = b - 1
return result

a. What does combine(3,4) return? 3+3+3+3=12
b. What does combine(6,7) return? 6+6+6+6+6+6+6=42
c. What does combine(3,0) return? 0
d. What mathematical function does combine compute? it is essentially a (a*b) function, but it will only work for (b) values that are positive (the function (3,-4) will return 0)

2. Given the following python function definition:

def splitup(a,b):
result = 0
while a >= b:
result = result + 1
a = a - b
return result

a. What does splitup(10,2) return? 5
b. What does splitup(8,2) return? 4
c. What does splitup(35,5) return? 7
d. What mathematical function does splitup compute? it is essentially a divide function, (a/b), for every time b goes into a, the result is increased by 1, this only works for numbers that go fully into one another (for example 22,7 will only return 3 when the answer is 3.1428)



3. Given the following python function definitions:

def strange(a):
print "Strange: a = ",a

def weird(a, b):
print "weird: a = ", a, "b = ", b
strange(a+b)

def reallyWeird(a, b):
strange(a - b)
print "reallyWeird: a = ", a, "b = ", b
strange(a+b)

def downrightOdd(a):
print "downrightOdd: a = ", a
reallyWeird(2*a, a)

What is the output of each of the following statements:

a. strange(6) = "Strange: a = 6"
b. weird(8, 4) = "weird: a = 8 b = 4 Strange: a+b = 12"
c. reallyWeird(8, 4) = "Strange: a-b = 4 reallyWeird: a = 8 b = 4 Strange: a+b = 12"
d. downrightOdd(3) = "downrightOdd: a = 3 Strange: a-b = 3 reallyWeird: a = 6 b = 3 Strange: a+b = 9"


4 Given the following python function definition:

def odd(a):
result = 0
while a > 1:
a = a / 2
result = result + 1
return result

a. What does odd(2) return? 1
b. What does odd(8) return? 4
EXTRA CREDIT: What mathematical function does odd compute? it divides (a) by 2 and adds 1 to the result continuously until (a) is less than or equal to 1

Math!

1 - Convert the following binary numbers to both hexadecimal (base-16) and decimal (base-10)
a) 1011 = 8+0+2+1 = 11 (dec) = b (hex)
b) 10101 = 16+0+4+0+1 = 21 (dec) = 2a (hex)
c) 10010110 = 124+0+0+16+0+4+2+0 = 146 (dec) = 96 (hex)
d) 1111111 = 64+32+16+8+4+2+1 = 145 (dec) = 7f (hex)

2 - Convert the following decimal numbers to both binary (base-2) and hexadecimal (base-16)
a) 8 = 8+0+0+0 = 1000 (bin) = 8 (hex)
b) 63 = 32+16+8+4+2+1 = 111111 (bin) = 3F (hex)
c) 113 = 64+32+16+0+0+0+1 = 1110001 (bin) = 71 (hex)
d) 97 = 64+32+0+0+0+0+1 = 1100001 (bin) = 61 (hex)


3 - Suppose that we want to download a 200 MB file. How long will it take on each of the following connections?
a) A modem that can download at 56 kilobits/second = 7h 56m
b) A DSL connection that can download at 5 Megabits/second =
c) A high-speed connection that can download 10 Megabits/second = 2m 40s

4 - If we have an Internet connection that can upload 3 Megabits/second, and an MP3 is 60 Megabytes, how many MP3s can we upload in an hour? In a month (given a reliable connection)? 2m 40s per upload = 22.5 per hour = 16200 per month (30 days)

Internet Neutrality

1. What is the fundamental issue underlying the net neutrality debate?

That ISP's can allocate different amounts of bandwidth and speed to content providers depending if they pay more. Also the ISP's can throttle content coming from providers using different ISP's. It also stems to the control of the hardware used by ISP's.

2. List two groups, organizations, or individuals in favor of net
neutrality. Fairly describe their arguments in favor of net neutrality.
Google and Amazon - They argue that internet users should be able to view all content equally, allowing small scale providers to have the same opportunity to show their content. However it would also help them by allowing all users to use their sites at the same speed.

3. List two groups, organizations, or individuals opposed to net
neutrality. Fairly describe their arguments against net neutrality.
Cisco Systems and 3M - They argue that internet neutrality will cause the sudden halt on the development of the internet as most of the money used by ISP's to develop their networks comes from the large content providers and so if this was to stop there would be no more development without the users paying a lot more.

4. What is your opinion on the subject?
I personally am 'on the fence' about this, while it does offer its benefits it also has many drawbacks, and neither side of the argument has enough to cause me to lean in ones favor.

Cloud Computing

What is cloud computing?
Cloud computing is a network system in which the information and documents for each user is stored on a central server, the information stored by each user is accessible from any computer in the network when the user is logged on to that computer.

What are the benefits and disadvantages of cloud computing for an ordinary computer user?
The benefits are that if the users computer is stolen/lost or the HDD gets corrupt from viruses etc. the users data is not lost as it is stored on a central server and can be recovered from any computer in the cloud. The disadvantage is that causes a dependency on the server by the user and that no files are stored on the users computer; if internet access was not available or the server was down then the files would be inaccessible, however this can be prevented by backing up the documents to and external, local location such as a HDD or USB memory stick.

What are the benefits and disadvantages of cloud computing for a start-up company?
The benefits for a start-up company is that it can significantly reduce the cost for a similar computer system, allowing the business to spent money elsewhere. The disadvantage is the same as above, if the server was inaccessible the files could not be accessed unless they were backed up to and external, local location.

What are the social dangers of cloud computing? That is, why might people be uneasy about the whole world's documents being stored on GoogleDocs instead of on local machines?
The social dangers of cloud computing is that if all the worlds documents were stored on several central servers, they could be used by governments to "spy" on anyone they wish. They could also be hacked by people, revealing private information, leading to crimes such as identity theft.
Also people may become uneasy about all the worlds documants being stored on several servers as if they were to somehow become inaccessible (such as power/network outages or DDoS attack) then people would be able to do very little.

First!

First post in this blog, hello world.