Short answer 1. What is an RFID tag and what does it do? An RFID tag is a Radio Frequency Identification tag. It is a small tag that can be read from a small distance and are equivalent to elaborate bar codes. They are used to identify different things and use radio frequencies to do so.
2. What is an EDR and what does it do? EDRs are Event Data Recorders. They are equivalent to black boxes on planes but instead for automobiles. They record every event in a car and can be used to see someone's speed before a crash and other information about their driving.
3. Is it possible to identify someone, perhaps a patient, knowing just his or her gender, birth date, and zip code? Explain. It is possible to narrow down the options through this, but you may end up having multiple results from a search with just birth date, zip code, and gender.
4. What is the difference between "big brotherism" and "little brotherism"? Little brotherism is every day people accessing your information through things you put on the Internet. Big brotherism is the government accessing your information through intense searching.
Free Response 1. How do you feel about “Big Brother” watching you? Do you think having security cameras everywhere is good or bad? I do not mind this to some degree, I understand that the government needs to watch for criminal activity, security over privacy. However, I believe that there must be some limits, obviously these cameras should only be in public areas, not in our own houses.
2. Is the Privacy Act effective? Explain. I believe the Privacy Act is not very effective nowadays. It was supposed to regulate the maintenance and use of information about oneself, but nowadays the government, like the NSA, look through most of the stuff we send over the Internet. However, access to the deep web is granted to everyone, which grants all users anonymity and complete privacy. This total privacy granted by using services such as TOR must be granted to all users because if you only grant it to the government then if you check who is on your site and find a TOR user, you will know it is a government official. (I know I went off on a tangent but I thought it was semi-relatable).
3. “The digital explosion has scattered the bits of our lives everywhere: records of the clothes we wear, the soaps we wash with, the streets we walk, and the cars we drive and where we drive them.” (pg 20) Marketing companies use these data to build models of our preferences and use these models to recommend products to us.. In 1 or 2 paragraphs, address the question 'Am I willing to trade some of my privacy for the convenience of having a computer or a company recommend products to me? Why or Why not?’ I would say for this specific cause I am not that willing to sacrifice my privacy just for a company to recommend stuff for me. I know what I like to eat so I don't need Giant Eagle giving me coupons for stuff they think I want that in actuality I don't. I know enough about video games and devices to not need a company to recommend me stuff since I already know about most games and products in store. My privacy is not worth a company nudging me on the shoulder saying "Based on purchases, you would maybe like this."
Critical Thinking Questions 1. How do “we leave digital footprints and fingerprints?” Do you think this is important for everyone to know? Why or why not? Everything you do that is linked to the Internet is permanent. Every text, picture, liked Tweet, that old cringey Instagram post you once thought was hysterical, you hope everyone forgets it but the Internet never will. I think more people need to realize this before they do regrettable things via the Internet.
2. How has the social evolution affected privacy? Consider social networking. As social evolution has evolved, we have diminished our privacy. We willingly sign our privacy away to companies and then proceed to give out information about ourselves to the public through social media.
3. What are our responsibilities as app developers with data that is gathered from the apps we create? Data gathered through apps we create should be protected and respected. We should value people's information as if it was our own, but also know that it is not our own and thus not snoop through it.