ENGR 350 Final Review Questions Crime What did the word "hacker" mean in the early days of computing? What is "phishing"? Describe one method financial Web sites use to convince a consumer the site is authentic. What is one problem with using biometrics for identification? What is one technique used to reduce online auction fraud? How have hacking and the related problems and issues changed since the Web became widely used? What are some methods or technologies use to catch hackers? Give an example of an activity that might be considered hacktivism and explain why there is ambiguity about classigying it as such. Discuss a few issues involved in the punishment of young hackers. What is shill bidding? Describe one technique used by online auction sites for reducing it. What characteristics of the Web make stock fraud easier? What characteristics of the Web and computer technologies make it easier to catch people who commit stock fraud on the Web? Describe a variety of techniques used to defend against credit card fraud, including at least one technical and at least one nontechnical. What was the significance or impact of Robert Morris' Internet Worm? Choose one of the major computer virus or worm attacks described in the text and tell something about it. Give one example from the text that might be considered hacktivism. What is one argument for considering hactivism an ethically acceptable form of political activity? What is one argument for not considering hactivism an ethically acceptable form of political activity? What is a denial of service attack? What is digital forensics? What is biometrics? Give an example. Work List two kinds of high-skill jobs that are offshored. What are two advantages and two disadvantages of telecommuting? What is one useful purpose of electronic monitoring of the number of items scanned by supermarket checkout workers? What is one problem caused by such monitoring? What types of employee monitoring most affect professional (white-collar) employees? Give two examples of job categories for which the increased productivity of computer systems strongly reduced the number of people working in those areas. Give an example of an area in which computer technology reduces jobs for skilled workers. Give one advantage and one problem associated with the computer systems used by trucking companies to monitor and communicate with their truck drivers. What are some reasons why it is reasonable for employers to read employee e-mail? (Give at least three.) Give arguments for employers monitoring or restricting Web use by employees. What are two factors or measures used in the text in the discussion about whether or not living standards have gone up or down since 1970? Based on the law (the Electronic Privacy Communications Act) and/or court cases, what degree of privacy do employees have for their e-mail on their employer's computers? (Answer in a complete sentence.) Some businesses prohibit the use of company e-mail systems for nonbusiness e-mail. What is one kind of nonbusiness e-mail they are not permitted to prohibit? Describe two kinds of computer crime committed by employees against their employers. Evaluating and Controlling Technology Describe two of the Luddite objections to e-commerce. What are two of the recommendations given by Sclove and Scheuer (in their article "On the Road Again? If Information Highways are Anything like Interstate Highways---Watch Out!") to help solve what they think are some of the problems caused by the Internet and new computer/telecommunications technologies? Describe two programs, proposals, or services aimed at making computers and/or Internet services more accessible to people with low incomes. Explain what the Luddites mean when they say technology creates artificial needs. Give an example involving computers. Describe two objections made in the 1970s to speech recognition research that from today's perspective are weak. Explain why. According to Sclove and Scheuer, in what way is Wal-Mart similar to e-commerce? Give any one of the minimum Universal Access requirements promoted by Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility. Give two of the three questions used in the text to evaluate computer models. Describe two weaknesses or flaws in the climate models. Fire departments often do "controlled burns;" that is, they carefully burn areas of brush to prevent a destructive wildfire from starting later. They now use a computer model to tell when it is safe to do a burn (e.g., not too windy). A fire department official with 25 years experience believed the computer model was not very good. He ignored the model, used his own judgment, and did a burn safely with no problems. But he was reprimanded by his boss for ignoring the computer. Give an argument in his defense. Give an argument in support of his boss. A law was passed in one state making juice boxes illegal because they are more difficult to recycle than glass bottles. Suppose you are developing a computer model to compare the environmental impact of juice boxes with juice sold in bottles. The model will consider manufacture, transportation, and disposal. List three important factors or variables to be included in the model. Include at least one for which the value is likely to be controversial (among environmentalists and juice box manufacturers). Tell which one. In 1972 an organization used a computer model to predict that the world would run out of several important natural resources in the 1980s. The model used known reserves of the resources, the average amount used per person (worldwide), world population, and expected population growth. None of the resources ran out. Give several reasons (at least three) why this model was not a good predictor of when we would run out of resources. Errors, Failures, and Risk Describe one case of a serious accuracy problem in a database. What are two important points or principles for designing user interfaces in safety-critical applications? In order to keep illegal immigrants and foreign visitors from working in the U.S., the government experimented with a program to require that every job applicant be checked against a national database (of people who can legally work in the U.S.) before being hired. What are some likely problems with this database? Mention an example of another database to support your arguments. Describe two underlying causes of the baggage-handling system problems that delayed the opening of the Denver Airport. Describe one practice or action (other than insufficient testing) that can introduce serious reliability or safety problems in software development. Give an example (of a real case). Explain one of the flaws in the Therac-25 system. What was one of the sources of failure common to both the Therac-25 radiation treatment machine and the Ariane 5 rocket? Give one argument in favor of and one argument against mandatory licensing of computer programmers. Describe one computer system that increased safety of air travel. Give an example of a billing error on a computer billing system. Give an example in which inaccuracy of data in a database caused a problem. What was one aspect of the Therac-25 that made it difficult for the operators to know if there was a serious safety problem? What was one software or hardware product where the seller did not honestly inform users about flaws and problems (other than the Therac-25)? Give an example where a confusing user interface was a significant factor in contributing to injuries or a serious accident. What is one principle about user interface design that is important in making computer-controlled airplanes safer? Give one argument for and give one argument against requiring strict warranties for software products. Give one argument for and give one argument against requiring FDA approval of every computer (or microprocessor)-controlled medical device before it can be legally used. Give an example where a person in a decision-making role relied on (incorrect) information from a computer, causing a serious problem for someone else. Give one example of a system mentioned in the text that uses redundancy or self-checking to reduce the probability of failure. List two cases described in the book in which insufficient testing was a factor in a program error or system failure. Professional Ethics and Responsibilities Why do professionals have extra ethical responsibilities? Explain the guideline "Require a convincing case for safety;" include an example. Give two reasons for disclosing a conflict of interest if you are in a situation where you have one. Describe the brainstorming phase in the methodology for analyzing ethical scenarios. Describe the analysis phase in the methodology for analyzing ethical scenarios. What is one of the risks in the scenario about a computerized record system for a family violence clinic? What is one ethical concern about "whistle-blowing"? Pick one of the ethics case scenarios in Chapter 10 and tell what it was about. Consider the discussion of ethical issues related to hiring programmers in India, who work for lower pay than programmers in the U.S. Give one argument either for or against the ethical acceptability of doing this. (Make sure it's clear which side the argument is on.) Describe any of the eight principles of the Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice including some of the numbered sub-items. (Be specific enough to show that you read it.) Describe one of the first three main sections of The ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct including some of the numbered sub-items. (Be specific enough to show that you read it.) General Exercises 9.6, 9.7, 9.10, 9.16, and 9.29 from the textbook.