Snowden

Ever since the leaks from Edward Snowden in 2013, the citizens of the United States have become cautious around the matter of security and privacy.  The fourth amendment states that “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.”  The documents leaked by Snowden go against this clause, but are followed by the description of the Patriot Act.  Flash back to September 11, 2001. In 102 minutes, the country was at war and would never be the same way again.  As such, Americans banded together to defeat terrorism.  The Patriot Act was a result of this, in the hopes to provide solid counter-terrorism tactics; there is nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide.  As a result, when the NSA documents first came to light, I was not surprised at all by the findings.  We live in an age where cameras and microphones are superfluous in any given location.  In addition, we have so many devices with network connectivity that makes metadata, phone tracking, and much more possible.  I really was not surprised to hear of the government “spying” on its people.

I’m all for fighting evil and terrorism, but I’m conflicted about this whole matter.  While some of this data collected could be useful, too much of it has been collected to be considered useful.  It would take centuries to view, unless you knew exactly where to look.  In addition, people have the right to privacy.  The fourth amendment should not be thrown out without probable cause.  In this case, probable cause does not mean to spy on hundreds of millions of people.

Edward Snowden is considered a hero by many, but a traitor to some.  The way I see it, he leaked the documents because he felt the NSA’s practices were immoral, and he couldn’t stand by and watch.  Instead of leaving and being silent, he chose to as he felt was morally right, and let the country know what was truly going on.  People who are “spied on” without any reasonable cause should have the right to know that they are.  It’s the reason why you see so many signs labeling security cameras in public places like parking lots and department stores.  But, the government has many secrets that, if they became public knowledge, would destroy the goal they were trying to achieve.

Maybe that’s how things should be.  Technology has impacted our lives so much that certain loopholes are taken for granted.  And many claim that Snowden, while acting on his conscience, chose to leak to the press for his own agenda.  Rather than attracting the interest of politicians who back the bills possible for the surveillance, he leaked it to the public and fled the country.  He “threw the secrets he knew up in the air—and trusted somehow that good would come of it”.

The waters between hero and traitor is murky.  As such, we will never truly know the effects of Snowden for many years until surveillance is reconsidered in this country.  He may have been acting on his own ego rather than his conscience, but people are thankful for the information he provided.  It all comes down to a simple question: Would you rather be unknowingly spied on, or aware that you are being spied on?

Project 2 Response

Link to PDF

For this project, my group and I created a guide to the job search and interview process.  In the guide, we detailed how and when to start preparing for interviews, what resources to consider, extracurricular activities to put on a resume, networking, contract negotiations, and general advice on the process.  I feel that one of the most important parts of this guide is the interview preparation.  Students can find a lot of resources on how to nail a technical interview.  While I certainly am not the best at technical interviews, I learned a lot by studying questions and thinking of complex answers on my own.  I also used GlassDoor a lot to research companies I was interviewing for and look at previous interview questions they have asked.  We also noted that you should not put a skill, project, or past experience on your resume if you are not prepared to talk about it.  Often my resume was scrutinized by many different interviewers on every skill I listed (they always wanted to know about LabVIEW, MatLab, and Scheme/lisp).

If there was anything I wish I had known earlier, it would be to start the process as early as possible and keep following up.  Most of the time I would get caught up in schoolwork and band (especially in the fall) so much that I would fall behind in my job search process.  I missed out on many opportunities this way.  The best advice I’ve received is to keep following up on everything.  It doesn’t hurt to send an email, and your tenacity to track somebody down through email comes off well on recruiters.  Even if you think a company may have filled positions, keep following up to get closure.  Otherwise, you may never know what could have been.

Job hunting certainly seems like it is a job on its own.  Researching, applying, and preparing for interviews can take up the majority of one’s time. This is especially relevant during junior year, when the hardest classes are being taken.  In addition, these are classes that are for sure to be relevant to technical interviews.  I think the bulk of tough courses should be taken earlier in college.  At Notre Dame we take Data Structures fall semester junior year, which is way too late.  It should be learned sophomore year, when most people are beginning to apply for smaller internships.  That way by the next year they can get a bigger internship.  I know a lot of my peers have said that they had to teach themselves data structures to prepare for technical interviews. I also think that there should be a fundamentals of computing course offered freshman year for CSE students.  While this doesn’t fit in with the first year engineering program, it offers a way for students interested in computer science to test the waters and get ahead.  I also think that there should be a focus on interview questions in a course, probably spring semester sophomore year, to keep the mind sharp going into the fall semester and career finding season.

The job market has changed dramatically over the last 15 years and employers want to focus on hiring only the best of the best.  We just need to focus on preparing for the interview process to prove that Notre Dame’s students truly are the best of the best.

Challenging Decisions

The Challenger Space Shuttle disaster is a vivid memory for anyone alive at the time.  Though I was not born just yet, I have heard personal accounts from many people exhibiting their flashbulb memory on the subject.  It’s one of the events in American history where people remember exactly what they were doing at the time of the disaster.  The space shuttle program was still young and people were watching every rocket launch that they could.  As a result, the world watched as the shuttle unexpectedly disintegrated 73 seconds into the launch.  We all know that the catastrophic failure resulted from an O-ring malfunction after multiple launch delays in the January weather.  However, this could have been prevented.

The “whistleblower” in this case is Roger Boisjoly, who had warned NASA previously of possible catastrophic failure due to a combination of the O-ring and freezing temperatures.  Of course, NASA seemed to ignore any and all warnings that could delay the future of space travel. Their solution to this potential problem seemed to be “strap another O-ring on there as a backup and we will deal with this later”. Unfortunately, it already was too late and this ignorance is what led to the disaster.  Once the causes became public, NASA was looking at someone to point their finger at and blame for the loss of human life.  On the other hand, Boisjoly came out to the public and revealed that he had warned them about this.

I feel that Boisjoly was right in revealing his information to the public.  He felt that NASA was wronging everyone including themselves, so he told his story.  NASA is also a publicly funded organization, which may be another reason to do this.  Instead of them pointing their finger at him, he explained to the world how he indirectly predicted the disaster and it was the fault of his higher-ups.  In doing so, he was very brave and knew the consequences.  However, I don’t think he fully understood that it would destroy his career.  He’s not a hero, but rather a person cast out from NASA for “tattling”.  If he didn’t come out with this information, he would have lived with guilt his entire life.  Honestly it was a tough situation and one that he would have to live with for the rest of his life.  Above all, he was noticed by a community as their own hero.  He wasn’t thrown down in the flame of blame after the disaster; he stood up for himself and people commended him for it, just not the right people, for the sake of his career.

I can understand why NASA would be frustrated with him, since loss of human life is something that nobody wants to take credit for.  They felt as if he betrayed them by blaming the higher-ups of the company and not the engineers.  However, it is unethical to be frustrated in this way.  Even though it was an accident, the person who should take full responsibility is the one that give the order to launch after the sub-zero temperatures.  According to Boisjoly, he or she knew the consequences and did not want to delay their schedule.  Ironically, the space program was grounded for over two years after the incident.

Disasters like Challenger are very tragic, yet they teach us what not to do at the same time.  In the same vein as the Titanic disaster, we learn from our mistakes and figure out new safety techniques for everybody involved.  It’s hard to think about how the space program might have been different if Challenger had not exploded.  While the disaster would be avoided, it may have merely been delayed.  We will never know for sure.  If there is a positive from this situation, it would be the extra safety precautions that are taken with spaceflight to ensure a disaster like this never happens again.

“Code” of Conduct

A code of conduct.  Every business, organization, and profession seems to have one.  While some are enforced by law, others are enforced on one’s honor code.  In the realm of software development, codes of conduct are in place for a reason: to avoid ruthless mistakes with others’ best interests in mind.  Especially within physical technology companies, codes of conduct need to be specific.  With increasing diversity in the workplace, it is easy to mistakenly offend the wrong party.  That’s why the codes of conduct are in place: to make people responsible for their actions and to think before they do anything stupid.

That’s not to say that people aren’t easily offended these days.  They are.  It’s impossible to crawl news websites, blogs, and social media without running into a vocal presence of somebody being offended by what a celebrity said yesterday.  While some of these claims seem overly radical, most are justified.  As Shawn M said, being offended is a choice.  While this is true, the world has become so politically correct that people feel they have to voice their concerns over disagreeing opinions, and become offended.  However, speaking out against gender, race, diversity, etc. in a negative way warrants backlash.  Those are sensitive subjects that are not chosen by a person, but given to them at birth.  Because this is not a choice, there is perfectly valid reason to be offended by one’s comments or actions directed towards this matter.  It’s a very complex argument that is affected by perception, which will be different for each person involved.  The best way to avoid this is to not say anything at all.  Or at least think before speaking, which is what a code of conduct will try to evoke.

It’s amazing that we even have codes of conduct that need to explain, essentially, “don’t be an asshole towards others.”  By the year 2016 we were supposed to destroy racism, sexism, and intolerance in general.  The fact that we haven’t yet shows that the world is a long ways away from establishing this goal.  The advent of the internet brought about being able to hide behind a computer screen as offensive jargon is sputtered.  It shows a faceless victim and a faceless perpetrator, which escalates the situation, making it easier and more widespread.

After examining the example codes of conduct, I see many recurring themes: be respectful, be considerate, and take responsibility for your words and actions.  This should go without saying, but for every rule, there is a reason for it being in place.  All it takes is one person to screw it up for everybody.  In addition, I see many details about giving credit, working as a team, and openly collaborating with others.  Of course, whenever you are working as a team each person should do equal work that doesn’t overlap too much. This, in turn, creates the best group dynamic, and as long as people reserve judgement, great things will happen.

In short, codes of conduct are necessary to show the expected guidelines to follow on a technical project.  It shows what will and won’t be tolerated when working with people.  Without it, people will be more negligent and careless.  It’s as my old high school band director always said: “It takes years to build a reputation, but only seconds to destroy it.”

Starting Up

In the computer science world, startup companies are all the rage.  With the tools that are available online, it makes it easy for anybody with an idea to create or join a startup.  But the one thing a startup needs to function is capital.  Money makes the world go around, and people get very selective with the way their money is used.  Hence, some startups succeed, and many fall into obscurity over time.  But why does this happen?

I actually have experience working in a startup myself.  Last year I got involved with one here in South Bend by a recent Notre Dame graduate.  He was looking for developers, and I thought it could be a great opportunity to use my skills that I have learned in class on a real-world topic.  This is a reason why people join startups.  Many companies put programmers to work, but often have them working on projects in which the developer is not passionate about, sometimes with little programming involved.  This is where startups and big companies differ.  People join startups to devote their time and more to a project or product that they truly believe in.  They create everything from scratch and don’t have to rely on outdated software or hardware which has not been updated in over a decade.   Every day and night is devoted to creating the best product from the passionate mind of the developer.  They see the potential in the company and work their hardest to achieve that goal.

Of course, the potential in a startup company is seen as a scalable monetary value.  Companies start small and grow once they have the capability of doing so.  This is powered through money, and being the first few people in a company basically guarantees a good percentage of the company, and with that, money.  Startups are all the rage because many companies whose products we use every day started small as startups.  Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, etc. all were startups that began with a great idea and made it big by achieving their dreams.  People see these successful startups and try to follow in their footsteps in the goal of being the “next big thing”.

Startup philosophy is a complicated one.  When a company becomes large enough to be in talks about acquisition and buyouts, nobody seems to agree.  Taking Professor Bowyer’s Entrepreneurship course last fall opened my eyes to this.  Some speakers would come in and advise to sell your company when you can, but others would attribute that as equivalent to suicide.  No matter what happens, people within the company will be frustrated at something and may leave for a different line of work.  As evidenced in the Unicorn article, people have to come first.  Without people, a company is useless; do what is best for the workers: the heart and soul of the machine that keeps running.

Every company had to start somewhere.  While I will not be pursuing a career in startups, I can admire them and their workers who pour their heart into lines of code for achieving a vision.  It’s not so much about not wanting to become part of something revolutionary, but wanting stability in my career.  Startups are unstable, but we can learn a lot from them, especially if we look within any successful tech company. There is always a basement: a place where it got its start, with people working long hours with little to no pay; therein lies the true essence of a dream.