LAMP is an acronym that refers to an infrastructure for developing web applications in a free or open-source software environment. The acronym technically stands for:
Linux
Apache
MySQL
PHP
which is a common combination of such tools and together represent each component needed to develop a web application; the OS, web server, database, and programming language. Note that there are other free alternatives for each of these tools. In particular, the programming language used is often Perl, Python, or Ruby instead of PHP.
What is exciting about this approach is that it is a low-cost way for organizations to get their web sites up and running. While expensive software may help create flashy sites, practically anyone can create a site using the LAMP infrastructure, and the tools work well together and are sufficiently powerful for the requirements of most web applications. Also, it's a great way to support the open-source community and avoid giving into the corporations that sell proprietary tools.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Privacy as a Positive or Negative Right
The right to privacy can be perceived as a positive right when we think about it as the right to control our information. We can consider rights (or privileges, since it is nontrivial to determine what should be considered a right) such as the ability to decide which companies have our contact information, the ability to choose which personal information to publicize, and the ability to hold private conversations over the internet as falling under the realm of digital privacy.
However, a more common -- and more accurate, in my opinion -- way to define privacy is as a negative right. Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary calls it "freedom from unauthorized intrusion." It is "freedom from" rather than "freedom to" that implies a negative right. In contrast with the examples above, we can think of privacy as the ability to give our contact information to one company without allowing that company to sell it to others, the ability to put information on the internet without it becoming publicly available, or the ability to have a conversation online without a third party accessing it.
In short, we want to be able to do anything we want on the internet without the fear that someone is watching. We want to have the same sense of security online as we do in our own houses, where no one can lawfully (or without proper authority) intrude without our knowledge and permission.
However, a more common -- and more accurate, in my opinion -- way to define privacy is as a negative right. Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary calls it "freedom from unauthorized intrusion." It is "freedom from" rather than "freedom to" that implies a negative right. In contrast with the examples above, we can think of privacy as the ability to give our contact information to one company without allowing that company to sell it to others, the ability to put information on the internet without it becoming publicly available, or the ability to have a conversation online without a third party accessing it.
In short, we want to be able to do anything we want on the internet without the fear that someone is watching. We want to have the same sense of security online as we do in our own houses, where no one can lawfully (or without proper authority) intrude without our knowledge and permission.
Exercise 3.4 from Learning Through Serving
The exercise asks why I think the police chief reacted to the mural the way that he did. The book was very vague on this point (probably to encourage our own thoughts in this exercise) but its tone was bitter. Personally I don't think the police chief was completely out of line. Religious imagery is always problematic in a public setting, especially in such a project that intends to represent an entire community; a community that does not necessarily agree, as a whole, with the artists' religious views. Even if the chief did not exactly have this concern in mind, it was probably a matter of policy for him not to endorse any religion at all. Doing so would be an abuse of his power as a government official (and don't even get me started on how much higher officials in this country do it anyway).
That said, there was probably not a single figure that could be agreed upon as a hero by the entire Latino community. We tend to single out religion because it is a sore spot for many people, but the fact of the matter is, we can never express the feelings of an entire community at once. This is where the nature of the "I" and the "we" comes in. The artists were chosen to express their ideas, keeping in mind that they are representing the community, but in the end the ideas come from the individuals. They can try to combine them and work together to find compromises, but to completely alter their vision and water down their ideas would be unfair to themselves and also an untrue representation of the community to which they belong.
I think that a better way to handle the situation that arose would have been to communicate with all parties involved at an earlier stage. If the students and artists had spoken to the police chief when they had first come up with the design, they would not have been so attached to it yet and could have discussed changing it or tried to persuade the police chief with no hard feelings.
That said, there was probably not a single figure that could be agreed upon as a hero by the entire Latino community. We tend to single out religion because it is a sore spot for many people, but the fact of the matter is, we can never express the feelings of an entire community at once. This is where the nature of the "I" and the "we" comes in. The artists were chosen to express their ideas, keeping in mind that they are representing the community, but in the end the ideas come from the individuals. They can try to combine them and work together to find compromises, but to completely alter their vision and water down their ideas would be unfair to themselves and also an untrue representation of the community to which they belong.
I think that a better way to handle the situation that arose would have been to communicate with all parties involved at an earlier stage. If the students and artists had spoken to the police chief when they had first come up with the design, they would not have been so attached to it yet and could have discussed changing it or tried to persuade the police chief with no hard feelings.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Google Street View
As Americans, we are very concerned with and feel entitled to our privacy. We don't like the idea of people being able to look up our information or see pictures of us without us knowing. This is why Google Street View has become so controversial. People find the idea of people seeing pictures of them on this site to be very creepy or at least uncomfortable. I can understand that. But...
I think that this whole situation is over-hyped. After all, we don't complain when people watch us on security cameras in every store we go to, do we? "But only security personnel see those," you might say. That's not always true. Some companies do market research by filming customers in stores. "Okay, but still, that's only a limited number of people, not the whole Internet." Sure, until they make a documentary about consumer behavior (like one I saw recently) and put that footage on television.
Plus, we put pictures of ourselves and our friends on the Internet every day! Like we were talking about in class last week, we even link our real names with these pictures.
Not only are we putting this information on the 'net, but we're getting surprisingly comfortable doing so. A few days ago my friend was complaining (on her blog) that a guy she had a crush on had a very common and thus un-Google-able name and had no Facebook account so she couldn't check him out. My reaction was "hmm, isn't it interesting that our first response to a crush these days is to try to spy on the person? Go go internet generation!" Yup, it's a common and accepted practice affectionately referred to as "webstalking" and it's probably happened to you!
So back to Google, who, to be fair, has pretty much single-handedly made this behavior possible. But can we really blame the company? They simply provide the technology and we are the ones who decide how to use it.
That's not to say that they should take no responsibility in the matter. They should not be negligent in privacy considerations, and I don't think they have been. Google's response to privacy concerns has been to allow people to report inappropriate images on the site. Google then edits the image to blur out any features that infringe on privacy, such as faces or license plates. I think that the only way they could do better than that (without taking down the whole Street View feature) is by going through all the images and blurring things out themselves, and Google has recently announced that they are planning to do this for the feature's release in the UK and possibly in the US as well.
So, while I am all for privacy in our personal lives and exchanges, I don't think Google has crossed a line here. Taking pictures of public places where anyone can see you is no worse than some of the infringements of privacy that our government performs in the name of security. Besides, these kinds of issues are a result of the technology that is now available to us, and we need to learn to deal with them as a society instead of pointing fingers. Like I said in class, the Internet is here to stay and we can't go backwards. We have to work together to figure out how to be comfortable with it while still utilizing it to its best potential.
I think that this whole situation is over-hyped. After all, we don't complain when people watch us on security cameras in every store we go to, do we? "But only security personnel see those," you might say. That's not always true. Some companies do market research by filming customers in stores. "Okay, but still, that's only a limited number of people, not the whole Internet." Sure, until they make a documentary about consumer behavior (like one I saw recently) and put that footage on television.
Plus, we put pictures of ourselves and our friends on the Internet every day! Like we were talking about in class last week, we even link our real names with these pictures.
Not only are we putting this information on the 'net, but we're getting surprisingly comfortable doing so. A few days ago my friend was complaining (on her blog) that a guy she had a crush on had a very common and thus un-Google-able name and had no Facebook account so she couldn't check him out. My reaction was "hmm, isn't it interesting that our first response to a crush these days is to try to spy on the person? Go go internet generation!" Yup, it's a common and accepted practice affectionately referred to as "webstalking" and it's probably happened to you!
So back to Google, who, to be fair, has pretty much single-handedly made this behavior possible. But can we really blame the company? They simply provide the technology and we are the ones who decide how to use it.
That's not to say that they should take no responsibility in the matter. They should not be negligent in privacy considerations, and I don't think they have been. Google's response to privacy concerns has been to allow people to report inappropriate images on the site. Google then edits the image to blur out any features that infringe on privacy, such as faces or license plates. I think that the only way they could do better than that (without taking down the whole Street View feature) is by going through all the images and blurring things out themselves, and Google has recently announced that they are planning to do this for the feature's release in the UK and possibly in the US as well.
So, while I am all for privacy in our personal lives and exchanges, I don't think Google has crossed a line here. Taking pictures of public places where anyone can see you is no worse than some of the infringements of privacy that our government performs in the name of security. Besides, these kinds of issues are a result of the technology that is now available to us, and we need to learn to deal with them as a society instead of pointing fingers. Like I said in class, the Internet is here to stay and we can't go backwards. We have to work together to figure out how to be comfortable with it while still utilizing it to its best potential.
Service in School
The question for this week asked me what I think about colleges teaching about engaged citizenship, which to me sounded a lot like the question, "do you think colleges should require service-learning classes like this one?" I'd like to first talk about service requirements in school in general, since such requirements seem to have become popular in the last decade or two.
Compared to the other students in this class, I have very little experience with community service. The American students especially seem to have completed many hours of service, sometimes on their own but, I think, especially through school. There are a few reasons that I haven't, the primary reason being that I moved around and had special challenges in school, but also because I was annoyed at the way the schools approached community service.
In some cases it was just posed as a school requirement: "you must do this many hours of community service in order to pass this year." To me, this felt like a very empty reason to do it. In my high school, service was not required but "encouraged," and most people just talked about it as something that looks good on college applications and will give you the edge to get in. But at the time, I was too worried about doing well in my actual classes to focus on extras in my resume. There was some talk about "giving back to the community," but seeing as I never really felt like I belonged in the communities that I lived in, this argument didn't really do it for me. Finally, people threw around buzzwords like "communication skills" and "leadership" but never really explained how I would acquire these things by working at the local soup kitchen.
In short, I didn't feel like any of these things applied to me. I sometimes felt selfish for feeling this way, but I also felt like I couldn't help it, and I didn't have the time or energy to deal with these feelings because my life was pretty complicated at the time.
Fast-forward to USF, to this class. I'm a senior and still haven't done any community service, but I feel that now, in this environment, I'm ready to. I feel like this class approaches service in a very different way than I've encountered in the past. Service-learning, a mutually beneficial situation where I hone my skills by helping others, seems much more appealing and satisfying. Also, I've never had an opportunity where someone has helped me find a service job that is best for me. In the past, I've felt overwhelmed when the school said: "go volunteer." I didn't know where to start. I like that USF is providing me with both a service opportunity that matches my skill set and a time-frame to do it in, so I don't have to find extra time in my hectic schedule to do it.
Yes, I think that we should try to learn to be active and engaged citizens. And yes, I think that college is a perfectly appropriate place to learn this, since most people don't get it at home and high schools seem to be approaching it the wrong way. Obviously, academic knowledge is not the only form of knowledge and I think that USF is right to encourage other forms of learning. I just hope that the experience really is as fulfilling as I am expecting it to be, and I'm looking forward to starting.
Compared to the other students in this class, I have very little experience with community service. The American students especially seem to have completed many hours of service, sometimes on their own but, I think, especially through school. There are a few reasons that I haven't, the primary reason being that I moved around and had special challenges in school, but also because I was annoyed at the way the schools approached community service.
In some cases it was just posed as a school requirement: "you must do this many hours of community service in order to pass this year." To me, this felt like a very empty reason to do it. In my high school, service was not required but "encouraged," and most people just talked about it as something that looks good on college applications and will give you the edge to get in. But at the time, I was too worried about doing well in my actual classes to focus on extras in my resume. There was some talk about "giving back to the community," but seeing as I never really felt like I belonged in the communities that I lived in, this argument didn't really do it for me. Finally, people threw around buzzwords like "communication skills" and "leadership" but never really explained how I would acquire these things by working at the local soup kitchen.
In short, I didn't feel like any of these things applied to me. I sometimes felt selfish for feeling this way, but I also felt like I couldn't help it, and I didn't have the time or energy to deal with these feelings because my life was pretty complicated at the time.
Fast-forward to USF, to this class. I'm a senior and still haven't done any community service, but I feel that now, in this environment, I'm ready to. I feel like this class approaches service in a very different way than I've encountered in the past. Service-learning, a mutually beneficial situation where I hone my skills by helping others, seems much more appealing and satisfying. Also, I've never had an opportunity where someone has helped me find a service job that is best for me. In the past, I've felt overwhelmed when the school said: "go volunteer." I didn't know where to start. I like that USF is providing me with both a service opportunity that matches my skill set and a time-frame to do it in, so I don't have to find extra time in my hectic schedule to do it.
Yes, I think that we should try to learn to be active and engaged citizens. And yes, I think that college is a perfectly appropriate place to learn this, since most people don't get it at home and high schools seem to be approaching it the wrong way. Obviously, academic knowledge is not the only form of knowledge and I think that USF is right to encourage other forms of learning. I just hope that the experience really is as fulfilling as I am expecting it to be, and I'm looking forward to starting.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
What I want to be when I grow up.
For someone who is about to graduate in a few months, you would think I'd have a more concrete answer to this question. If you had asked me a few years ago, I probably would have said I want to go into video game design. But the novelty of that idea has grown thin, and while I'm not ruling it out completely, it's not really at the top of my list anymore.
I haven't had too much experience yet, out there in the "real world" that everybody likes to talk so much about. I've only had a couple of programming jobs, and neither of them were very satisfying for me. At both, I lacked a strong interest in the product itself (though I tried my best) and at both, the atmosphere was decidedly antisocial. Like I said, I don't have a lot of experience yet, but I know it has to get better than this!
Lots of people say "I don't want to be just another programmer. I don't want to just sit in a cubicle all day at a large corporation." Or maybe they do, I don't know. The truth is, I really don't feel like I'm a mediocre programmer or a mediocre thinker, and I think I deserve more than a mediocre job. That said, I can't say I have any bright ideas or even burning passions that make me go "this is what I want to contribute to the field." At this point in my career, the most important things to me are to work with smart, interesting people and to be challenged in my job. If I have those things, I think that will be enough to inspire me and I will find my own important thing to contribute.
I haven't had too much experience yet, out there in the "real world" that everybody likes to talk so much about. I've only had a couple of programming jobs, and neither of them were very satisfying for me. At both, I lacked a strong interest in the product itself (though I tried my best) and at both, the atmosphere was decidedly antisocial. Like I said, I don't have a lot of experience yet, but I know it has to get better than this!
Lots of people say "I don't want to be just another programmer. I don't want to just sit in a cubicle all day at a large corporation." Or maybe they do, I don't know. The truth is, I really don't feel like I'm a mediocre programmer or a mediocre thinker, and I think I deserve more than a mediocre job. That said, I can't say I have any bright ideas or even burning passions that make me go "this is what I want to contribute to the field." At this point in my career, the most important things to me are to work with smart, interesting people and to be challenged in my job. If I have those things, I think that will be enough to inspire me and I will find my own important thing to contribute.
Encryption
Symmetric-key vs. assymentric-key encryption (a.k.a. private-key and public-key encryption, respectively) have in common that in order to decode an encrypted message, one needs a certain "key." This key is a large number, often hundreds of bits long. In private-key encryption, the same key is used to encode and decode the message. Thus, it must be distributed to all parties involved in the communication beforehand and then kept secret. In many situations, distributing the key securely is a problem. This algorithm works best if the parties have some secure way to distribute a key once, and wish to communicate many times using the same key. If the secret key is somehow found out, then everyone must switch to a new key.
Public key encryption uses two keys: one to encrypt and one to decrypt. Each party has a public key (which they advertise) and their own private key (which must be kept secret). These keys are generated together, and the algorithm relies on using them both together. The math (which I don't completely understand) involves relative primeness of numbers and modular arithmetic. If someone wishes to communicate with me, they use my public key to encode a message, which I can then decode using my private key. Also, I can "digitally sign" things with my private key to prove my identity to people who know my public key. This algorithm is good for one-time communications but slower than symmetric-key encryption, and is very difficult to crack because finding out the keys involves factoring large numbers, which is (currently) a hard problem.
Public key encryption uses two keys: one to encrypt and one to decrypt. Each party has a public key (which they advertise) and their own private key (which must be kept secret). These keys are generated together, and the algorithm relies on using them both together. The math (which I don't completely understand) involves relative primeness of numbers and modular arithmetic. If someone wishes to communicate with me, they use my public key to encode a message, which I can then decode using my private key. Also, I can "digitally sign" things with my private key to prove my identity to people who know my public key. This algorithm is good for one-time communications but slower than symmetric-key encryption, and is very difficult to crack because finding out the keys involves factoring large numbers, which is (currently) a hard problem.
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