Posts

Week 15 - Ethics

 Ethics Act Utilitarianism      Act utilitarianism is the single most beneficial theory in the world, period. It narrates that the 'right' course of action in any situation is one that would grant the most overall positive net gain to every party involved (or the least negative gain). This means that in every case, following the theory would provide the most good - being, on a surface level, the clear cut winner. However, it skips out the individual part - as long as one person's individual suffering would pay for a multitude of other people being happier, then it is all good in the eyes of this theory. Furthermore, it is very difficult to quantify just how 'valuable' an action is to any given person, as everyone has a different measuring stick and there is a whole lot to leave for interpretation in these scenarios. But how does this tie into IT?     Well, for this topic, I will sadly have to be as bland as one possibly can be and talk about self-driving cars. I kno

Paper Review - Onions

 Onions can make people cry The Form     Being the part of the article that drew me towards it in the first place, it also made me more skeptical towards the article as a whole. Whereas every single other project had a rather academic and concise name, this one had a name not perhaps very fitting of a regular Wikipedia article - instead seeming more like a journalist's take on a popular browser (Which the entire page reminded me of, though that is only natural, given that the light scope of the groupwork means going too in-depth is more of a detriment than anything else.       There were a few grammatical errors (Such as "Due to the bitcoin, the dark web has flourished"), but they were not all too prevalent throughout the entire page - one would assume that this entire thing was not really proofread either, given that it was mostly written just a few days before the final deadline. I am not sure if the group had a separate document file where they somehow shared and colla

Week 14 - Accessibility

 Accessibility Lucy     On the same note as the forum topic mentioning eye tracking, I figured I would talk about something I have always been interested in for people with disabilities. I myself do not know any such people on a personal level, but I find this solution to be the neatest. I have always been interested in "eye tracking", but it can be a bit inaccurate at times, though I feel like it would be enough for most disabilities. However, there exists another solution as well, which works off the same principle. A specific example of this would be Lucy4. Pretty much equivalent to using eye tracking to control something, except instead of eyes, one uses their head! This is magnitudes more accurate than eye tracking and would even enable people with ticks (involuntary head control) to be able to accurately give input, lest the ticks are really extremely major.      Probably one of the main disadvantages I've encountered with eye tracking when I tested it was that it i

Week 13 - Distros

 Distros Arch     Arch, one of the few distros also well-known to outsiders.  This is the only distro I myself have experience with as well, seeing as I decided to be real cocky and thought I was ready for the challenge. Honestly, what I did just reaffirms the main stereotype about Arch users. It is kind of notorious for being a 'hard' distro, but in reality it is a bragging distro. From my experience, and apparently that of many others, Arch users are obnoxiously loud about the fact that they use Arch - they shove it into every single conversation whenever it even lightly grazes on IT/distros/Linux etc. As such, they actually have a bit of a bad reputation. As for the distro itself, it's.. barely a distro, as far as comparing to others goes. It is barren, and that is its advantage - it is ready from the ground up to use  set up! Every Arch installation is pretty unique in that it is designed by the person who installed it. Sure, other distros can be customized in such a wa

Week 12 - Ideals

 Ideals Passion     Honestly, saying that "passion" should be an ideal to follow when choosing what you do is almost akin to saying that the sky is blue. It is utterly unnecessary as it applies to literally everything . No matter where you go, the phrase "you must be passionate about what you choose to follow" gets hammered into you, and it never really helps. If someone has the possibility and willpower to follow their passion, they will. If they don't, they will not. It just feels like bragging by people who have managed to land a good life with a profession that fits their passions.  Freedom     Definitely the most defining factor of the hacker culture, and one that is becoming more prevalent overall and is definitely a reason for more people getting into IT. Government censorship and regulations are becoming more and more restrictive, and even common people are getting hit by geographically locked content and starting to use VPNs to bypass that as well as ga

Week 11 - Privacy

 Censorship and Privacy Censorship - Hate Speech and the Western World     Usually, the West is viewed as a frontier for "democracy". A shining beacon for human rights and a general leader in how to treat one's citizens well. However, recently I feel like this is really going down the drain and the reason is one that I honestly did not expect when I was younger, but is painfully obviously used as a tool for censorship nowadays. Yes, I am talking about "hate speech". This wonderful, all-encompassing word is the main tool that is being used in order to drown out anything that the government or particular companies do not want to see. What exactly encompasses hate speech is immensely vague and that fact is becoming a larger and larger issue. With the UK making hate speech a criminally punishable offense and a lot of other countries following suit, it is difficult to see a light at the end of this tunnel, especially when companies are fast to follow.     My favourit

Week 10 - Mitnick

 Mitnick Formula Technology     By a long shot probably the most advanced part of Estonia out of the three tenets. Estonia is rather widely known for having been 'ahead of the curve' due to taking a very IT-heavy focus after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and it is one of the only things making our country unique and stand out. However, even though Estonia has "internet as a human right" and WiFi all over the place, the security is often very subpar, especially in terms of training/policy. The ID card is the most important document for any Estonian, and the IT infrastructure surrounding it is rather immense. I do not have any secret insight to the inner workings of the card or the network, but I know that keeping it secure is a constant priority. [Even though, that being said, the software for it is god-awful and many people I know have suffered nonstop problems with it]. No matter what precautions are taken though, it is only a matter of time before another vulner