The Digital Education Divide

Background

Prior to the COVID-19 Pandemic, many were concerned that the digital divide in education had the potential to widen economic and other social divides. This was true in both the United States and internationally, especially in developing countries.

The digital education divide in developing countries has many causes. Among them are a lack of access to stable electricity that run a classroom of computers, lack of broadband Internet access and educators familiar with technology, funding for purchasing and maintaining equipment, and a lack of perceived need to make it a priority when there are many facing challenges meeting basic needs. 

In the U.S, some of those same issues can be found, but often to a lesser extent, though many homes in the U.S still lack access to high speed Internet. There are digital education divides caused by lack of resources in the home, both in Internet access and computers. The book, Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race, and Computing by Jane Margolis, does an excellent job describing how, even within a single high school in a large city, the digital divide and exasperates many issues for underprivileged students.

Another concern expressed about the digital divide is between content consumers and content producers on the Internet. Being a content creator requires a digital education. Internet users create blogs, Web pages, videos, and product reviews. Being a content creator empowers a user to communicate his or her message to a large number of people. The Internet can be a strong agent for change for those who have the skills, education, and tools to create content. Content creators tend to be more educated, and the content-production divide shows a gap among users based on socioeconomic status.

With the onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic, many schools moved to an online format to continue education. Schools in the United States were able to get funding for Chromebook or other low cost devices and many Internet service provides allows free or reduced cost access for homes with school aged children. In some cases, it narrowed the digital education divide where these resources were available. Though, many lower income families still struggled with provide good locations for students to perform their work or were challenged with multiple children needed to share a single computer for classes. 

Internationally, the situation was far more grave. Schools shutdown. Others tried to move online, but relying on poor Internet connections proved nearly unworkable. There was no funding for schools to by devices for students to use at home. My 6 year-old niece in Honduras struggled to attend her first grade class and complete assignments on a smart phone. She was lucky enough to have an adult nearby who could help and answer questions, but that was not the case for most of the students in her school. The pandemic took a broken education system and crippled it farther. Schools in Nigeria used WhatsApp as a means to communicate and submit assignments since many did not have an LMS (Learning Management System).

As the United States pulls out of the worst of the pandemic, developing countries continue to struggle with COVID-19 and its impact to education.

Your Task:

Write an essay of 900 - 1200 words that addresses the current and future state of the digital education divide. 

Research challenges faced with moving education online in developing countries during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some things to consider when writing your essay:

• Give a brief summary of information from at least three to five articles or papers on the topic.

• What do your see as the long term impacts of an digital education divide?

• How should we view the digital education divide compared with education before the Internet?

You can optionally address these questions:

• What can be done by technology companies?

• What are alternatives that can be implemented by schools?

Balancing Security, Cost, Ease of Use and Privacy

One of the challenges of an information technology professional is working with a client to find the balance between competing demands for a system. We need our systems to be secure, but for inexperienced and untrained users, increased security can create a usability challenge, thus decreasing the utility of the system. Ensuring privacy, secure and ease of use increase system costs so when funding is limited, we must prioritize these requirements. How do you decide what is the best compromise? What if your client has other priorities?

Consider this scenario:

You've been hired as a consultant for a community clinic that works with families that have problems of family violence. The clinic has three sites in the same city, including a shelter for battered women and children. The director wants a computerized record and appointment system, networked for all the sites. She wants a few tablets on which staffers can carry records when they visit clients at home and stay in touch with clients by email. She asked about an app for these tablets and the staffers’ smartphones by which they could access records at other related social service agencies. At the shelter, staffers use only first names for clients, but the records contain last names and forwarding addresses of women who have recently left. The clinic’s budget is small and comes primarily from donations and grants. Most staffers do their work on paper, word processing or spreadsheet applications on one of two shared desktop computers in the main clinic office.

It may seem strange that any business or organization uses paper or simple office applications in this age. But often a small business begins with few clients and staff and no computer expertise. As the organization grows, keeping records and managing the business manually does not scale, so the organization sees the needs to transition to a more robust computer system. Currently, the sensitive information carried by staffers can be accessed only by someone who has physical access to the paper copies or one of the shared desktop computers.

The clinic director is aware of the sensitivity of the information in the records and knows that inappropriate release of information can result in embarrassment for families using the clinic and physical harm to women who use the shelter. But she might not be aware of the risks of the technologies in the system she wants. You, as the information technology professional, have specialized knowledge in this area.

When proposing a clinic system, it is as much your obligation to warn the director of the risks as it is that of a physician to warn a patient of side-effects of a drug he or she prescribes. Keep in mind that the security features you recommend will make the system more expensive.

Suppose the director says the clinic cannot afford all the security features. She wants you to develop a system without most of them. You have several options:

• develop a cheap, but vulnerable, system,
• refuse and perhaps lose the job to someone willing to compromise security
• add security features and not charge for them, or
• work out a compromise that includes the protections you consider essential.

(This is based on Section 9.3.2 and Exercise 9.44 in A Gift of Fire, 5e)

Part 1: Start the dialog. The director has asked you to rank your suggestions for security and privacy protection measures so that she can choose the most important ones while still trying to stay within her small budget. Group the suggestions into at least three categories: imperative, important, and recommended. Include explanations you might give her and assumptions you make (or questions you would ask her) to help determine the importance of some features.

Part 2: Push back. Now, assume the role of the clinic director. (Select another student's post and push back against the recommendations.) You have a very limited budget. What are the weaknesses in the proposal? What are the areas where the extra security features don't seem to be justified? Remember, as the director, you're not as technically knowledgeable or experienced.

Your proposal in Part 1 should be as convincing as possible -- in a real scenario, you may not get a second chance to respond to the director's comments, she may simply decide to not go forward because of the costs and risks.

The Challenge of Responsible Disclosure

Responsible disclosure of a cybersecurity flaw is more complicated than a typical whistleblowing scenario. In many whistleblowing situations, unsafe or illegal activities are already ongoing and known (or even condoned) within an organization. By publicizing these activities, the whistleblower is shedding light with the hope of improving safety or stopping a crime. When a cybersecurity flaw is discovered in an application or system, the organization may not be aware of it. Exposing the flaw publicly alerts hackers who may be able to exploit the flaw prior to the availablity of a fix. It is responsible practice to disclose a flaw privately so an organization has time to prepare patches (corrections) or close security holes.

Companies react differently when a cyber vulnerability is discovered by someone who was not their own security researcher or performing a security audit for the company under contract.

Some companies, such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft, offer bug bounties. (Apple does also, but many researchers say the bounty is not high enough.) Third parties, such as security and cyber defense firms, also offer bug bounties which are often even higher than the software publisher's bounty.

Other companies react negatively and charge the person discovering the vulnerability. Here is an example:Man gets threats—not bug bounty—after finding DJI customer data in public view

In November 2014, a hacker approached a journalist at Motherboard and mentioned he had found interesting data on the servers of the toymaker VTech. The hacker shared some of the data with the reporter because "he thought the company 'would never listen' to him, and might even have tried to cover the breach up. Also, judging by the poor level of security he saw on VTech's servers, he was worried others could get access to that data, or had already accessed it." The hacker did not want the data to be made public by someone with malicious intent.

When children are breached—inside the massive VTech hack

Hacked toymaker leaked gigabytes’ worth of kids’ headshots and chat logs

VTech was notified about the breach by Motherboard and after verifying it occurred, made a public announcement.  Later, the British government charged the individual with crimes under the Computer Misuse Act which is similar to the Unites States' Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).

Man arrested in toymaker hack that exposed data for millions of kids

These are just a few of the many, many, many examples that show varying reaction by software and system companies.

Consider these scenarios:

Scenario 1) Suppose you are on a computer and using the web front-end for one of your favorite mobile apps. You read that another similar application had an easy to exploit SQL injection vulnerability and you wondered if this web app had the same vulnerability. With a simple cut-and-paste from a blog entry you discover this web site has the vulnerability also.

• What actions, if any, do you take?

• Why do you believe that is the correct course of action?

• How would your actions differ if the web site was for a bank, a social media site, a game FAQ bulletin board or a friend's small business web site where the only web form was a "Contact Us" page to send email?

Scenario 2) Consider a scenario similar to the above, but for this you are an employee in the company, but not in the cybersecurity division or the department that developed the web application. You report the vulnerability to a grateful management that tells you they will address it quickly.

After 30 days, you notice the vulnerability still exists and after following up, you're told that the vulnerability will be fixed, but it's had to wait since the IT staff has been overworked trying to get out a new release. They did not want to rush the fix and possibly break other modules or delay the new release.

• What actions, if any, do you take?

• Why do you believe that is the correct course of action?

• How would your actions differ if the web site was for a bank, a social media site, a game FAQ bulletin board or a friend's small business web site where the only web form was a "Contact Us" page to send email?

Can Fake News Be Controlled?

Background

Note: This essay assignment has many sources for background information. Please read them to get a clear picture of the overall news environment.

To start, we need to have a clear idea of what constitutes fake news. A common definition for fake news is the one found on Wikipedia that states fake news "is a type of ... journalism or propaganda that consists of deliberate misinformation or hoaxes spread via traditional print and broadcast news media or online social media."

Fake news has been around for centuries in many forms. Even before news was available on social media sites, email and traditional web sites made it possible for hoaxes to quickly spread, giving rise to sites like Snopes whose purpose is to refute hoaxes and urban legends. 

So if this problem has been around for years, why has it become a significant issue now?

Having reliable information available to the public is at the heart of what makes an effective democracy possible. The Internet and social media have made it possible for false information, both deliberately falsified and accidentally falsified, to quickly spread far beyond a local community to millions of readers. Many people find it hard to differentiate propaganda and fake news from well-supported and researched journalism.

More and more frequently, inaccurate information is shared on Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites and then related by news services, thus increasing the likelihood if it going viral. This is problematic for a number of reasons:

• A 2016 Pew Research study found that overall, 38% of Americans get their news online and 50% of those who prefer to read news, get their news online. This implies that online news, whether real or fake, is a powerful factor shaping the perspective Americans have of the world.

• People have a tendency to accept as "true" information that supports their current beliefs over claims that challenge their beliefs, even if the information supporting their beliefs is less objectively plausible. For evidence of this, do a quick search on the topic "facts don't change minds" -- there are many articles on this topic and some recent research from several universities.

• Facebook and other social media sites as well as news aggregator sites play to your perceived biases and filter your newsfeeds based on your points of view. To see an example, the Washington Post has created a web page where you can see the different newsfeeds generated by FaceBook for conservatives and liberals. 

Compounding this issue is the line between biased news and propaganda. Is biased media fake news? The web site AllSides believes so and strives to provide reporting from multiple sources on each story. They also have put together a bias rating for major news sources.

 In the summer of 2017, Germany passed a law stating that social media sites face fines for not removing hate speech or fake news from their sites. 

A bill in California was introduced in the spring of 2017 that would make it illegal for social media sites to publish false or deceptive information on candidates. 

Your Task

Write a short essay (roughly 800 - 1000 words) that examines actions various players can take against fake news and propaganda to protect the integrity of elections in a democracy. (If you feel you need to, you can write more than 1000 words to thoroughly address the topic.) Focus on these questions:

• Social media sites: Look into actions taking by Facebook to address fake news since the 2016 U.S. election.

  • What is reasonable about these actions?

  • What is unreasonable or likely to be ineffective?

  • How have these curtailed free speech and what do you consider Facebook's responsibility to protect free speech and why?

• Federal and state governments: How could other democracies implement measures similar to those taken by Germany to address the fake news epidemic? 

  • What are the different responsibilities and actions that could be taken at the federal and state levels?

  • Which is a more appropriate manner to deal with this issue?

• Citizens: What are the responsibilities of citizens in democracies in vetting the information they receive from social media, traditional news sources (newspapers, broadcast network news, etc.) and from friends and family?

  • How can the typical citizen identify fake news or propaganda? How can the level of effort in doing this be reduced since activities that take more than a click or two seldom get completed?

Ballot Selfies

Selfies are a remarkably popular activity that was enhanced by smart phone manufacturers when they placed a second camera that faces toward the user on the device. People take selfies of any experience and every activity in their lives and quickly post them to social media to let the friends (and the world) know what they've done, created or even destroyed.

One place where a person may run into a problem is taking a selfie in the voting booth to show everyone on a social media site who the person voted for. Many voters are proud of who they supported and voted for in an election and want to post a selfie showing their ballot to publicize the commitment to a candidate and encourage friends to do the same.

Many states prohibit this. These states reason that a person could be coerced into voting for a particular candidate and a ballot selfie is taken to confirm the person voted as ordered.

Laws preventing ballot selfies have created a conflict between the First Amendment free speech rights of the selfie-taker and the desire of states to ensure all elections are free of fraud and that no votes were "bought."

In November 2016, New Hampshire's law barring ballot selfies was declared unconstitutional by the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals. But then, just this fall (September 2017), a federal district court ruled that a New York City law banning photographs of completed ballots could stand and the minimal free speech restrictions by the narrowly defined law are reasonable to ensure election integrity.

Part 1) Find out what the laws regarding ballot selfies are in the state or country where you would vote.

• Research arguments on both sides of the issue.

• Which side of the issue (Free Speech versus Election Integrity) are you on and why?

• Write your answer in a manner to persuade someone with an opposing point view.

Part 2) Consider the following:

Most of us live in countries with a stable government and election system. In the fall of 2017, the Kenyan Supreme Court nullified that country's August elections because there was ample evidence of possible election fraud. A new runoff election was scheduled for October.

• Perform additional research on the 2017 Kenyan election and a few other elections where there were accusations of election fraud. 

• How would allowing ballot selfies in this election have supported the claims of election fraud?

• How would allowing ballot selfies potentially have prevented election fraud?

• Should the political environment be considered when balancing free speech and election integrity? Why or why not? (In answering this, think about when free speech is most important and when it is typically most restricted.)

Selling Our Internet Activity

In March, 2017, Congress voted to eliminate rules that "would have required home Internet and mobile broadband providers to get consumers' opt-in consent before selling or sharing Web browsing history, app usage history, and other private information with advertisers and other companies."  -- Ars Technica, 3/29/2017

You can get more information on this decision from this article and the additional references the article links to:

ISPs and FCC Chair Ajit Pai celebrate death of online privacy rules

Research, Analyze, Decide, Propose

1. Consider that you are a staffer for the FCC. Write at least a 300-word response that will be posted on the FCC web site for consumers that explains the benefits and reasoning behind this decision.
    
2. Assume the role of a privacy advocate in the district of RI Representative James Langevine. Write your post as if it was a memo to Mr. Langevine explaining why he should vote against revoking these rules.
    
3. Vote with a "Like" on the FCC response and Langevine memo that you feel was the most persuasive and write a short paragraph explaining why.

I encourage you to dig into this topic with information from the textbook and additional online resources. At the end of each post, be sure to include links to any references you used other than the above URL and textbook.

Social Rating Systems

By 2020 (in less than 3 years), the government of China plans to have a system that assigns each person a social rating based on the person’s financial transactions, how he or she behaves in public and at work, etc. Already, face-recognition technology installed along streets detects jaywalkers and displays their photos on large public screens. These systems and more would be linked together to create the social rating.

Several Chinese companies already partially implement a slimmed down version of this system as part of their normal services. The United States has a smaller version of this in its "Credit Score" system.

This BBC article can serve as a starting point for investigating this system and others similar:

China 'social credit': Beijing sets up huge system

Commercial systems that are currently implemented, for example with Sesame, Alibaba and Baihe, Chinese users seem to accept the social score as something good. As is quoted in the article, "Credit systems build trust between all citizens."

Research, Analyze, Decide, Propose

Assume the role of a data engineer at either Google, Facebook or Amazon. Each of these companies compete globally with Alibaba. Your department head has asked you to put together a short memo that would persuade her executive vice president that the company should use the massive amount of data it gathers on its members to creating a "social rating" also. 

Post at least two carefully supported reasons why Google or Amazon should pursue this strategy. 

Post reasons why customers of Google, Facebook or Amazon would resist a social scoring system? What differences (if any) are there between Chinese citizens, and citizens of America, India or other nations?

For the classroom: Comment on at least one other classmates posts. "Like" a classmate's post that was particularly persuasive and comment why.