Extra Credit (Assignment 8)

Good- Mobile Health
In this article, it talks about how cell phones can be used to advance the medical industry and provide health benefits to poorer people of whom would normally not receive such things.  Now that we have found a way to transform money into electronic bits, mobile banking services like Safaricom’s M-PESA in Kenya, provide banking services by allowing people to send and receive payments through their mobile phones.  Also, phones might make people healthier.  In Africa and South Asia people can "text advice or send voice messages to pregnant women, text reminders to AIDS patients to take their meds, track the spread of diseases, allowing community health workers to keep records electronically and variations on all these themes".  In addition, scientists have already made a microscope capable of diagnosing malaria and tuberculosis from a mobile phone with an inexpensive eyepiece and lenses attached. Even though these expectations have not yet quite become a reality, it is a slowly growing positive advancement.  Now that we have the technology to do almost anything, it is very possible for these ideas to come true in the future.  There has already been one successful project in Mwana. "Many babies are born to H.I.V.-positive women, and testing whether these babies are H.I.V.-positive and getting the results back to their caregivers used to take weeks."  This program in Mwana has health workers sending the information by text message to the women, ultimately reducing the time by more than half which also reduces the amount of results lost.


Bad- Internet Addiction
 This article explains a rumor that China, who has had a 13 year ban on gaming consoles may finally lift that ban.  However, this is very unlikely.  The photo on top of the article depicts the local police destroying (burning) 1,000 confiscated gaming machines in the Shunqing District of Nanchong City, China, in 2012.  They put this ban on consoles to try to combat the growing problem of Internet Addiction.  Yet, this might not have been the best way to do so.  Because of the ban, there are more pirated gaming systems and games.  Many games need to be reviewed and edited for content before they are put on the market in China as well.
Because of the ever changing and advancing technology, people will obviously get addicted but putting many restrictions on systems will not make a difference because people will always find a way around it.  The government in China is so strict about what you can and cannot do and knowing that the U.S. could possibly enact laws to permit the use of various technologies because of the worsening negative effects of the internet is very scary.


Ugly- Cyberstalking
 This article exposes Adam Savader, a GOP campaign intern who was charged in a sexual extortion scheme.  He posed many times as Ellis the Elephant, and went to schools and events to promote Callista Gingrich's children's books. Savader was charged for stalking girls using the Internet and text messages, blackmailing them with nude photos of themselves.  He also apparently "had naked pictures of the women and vowed to send them to friends and family if more were not provided."
This is very scary to know that people who we are ultimately putting society and democracy in their hands are doing this kind of thing.  The fact that someone can use the Internet to exploit kids and women is terrifying because they might seem normal and fine in person but then they are a completely different person while online.  It's sad to know that girls are being targeted online so much and the fact that technology is making it easier for predators to seek out people to harm.

Assignment 3B- Cell Phones & Privacy

Many people use prepaid cell phones for legitimate reasons like if they did not have enough money to buy a whole plan. I don’t think that prepaid cell phones should be banned because when phone booths were still around, no one saw that as a threat and criminals could have used those for the same purpose.  Yet, I think it would be fine if prepaid cell phones were controlled by laws.  If users had to register the cell phone so they can be tracked it would not really be diminishing their right to privacy in that much of a harmful way.  It IS cutting into their privacy but it is for the good of society. I believe as long as they are still able to obtain the phone by cash and things like that it would be ok (especially for people who are poor or young kids with not a lot of money because they are still able to have a cell phone for emergencies or work).

Assignment 3B- Location Tracking

I do not think that it is the parents right to have the chips implanted into their children because the children, although young, still have the right to do what they want with their body and the right to privacy.  I do believe that there needs to be something to help reduce the number of child abductions but implanting a chip is probably not the best solution.  I think the shoe solution would be more beneficial for seniors with alzheimers incase they get lost.  But, I think if they tried to put the GPS trackers in shoes targeted for children, they would just not wear the shoes or take them out.  However, maybe if it was planted in toddlers shoes I think it would be more efficient rather then have them on the leashes parents use to keep their children close.  Nonetheless, I do not believe implanting a chip into someone's body is the right move for anyone.

In CS408, students examine the consequences of living in a networked world.  This course educates students on how to make well-informed decisions about using the Internet effectively and safely.  Through out this course students will get to create their own blogs, write on discussion boards and communicate through several forms of technology.