COMP7004 Class 03.1

We listed to a BBC documentary about utilitarian ethics and the Trolley Problem.

Would You Push the Big Guy Part I

I asked student to complete the exercise at moralmachne.mit.edu

We discussed self driving car and how bias can be introduced into training of AI.


Students can second to Would You Push the Big Guy Part II here.


There will now other COMP7004 classes this week, because Colin is away.

COMP7004 Class 02.3 Cancelled

This class was cancelled because Colin had a meeting

COMP7004 Class 02.2

We loved at Intuitionsim and Consequentialism.  We will return to consequentialism in the next class.

There will be no class on Thursday because I have a meeting that clashes.

Students have asked me to move classes on Thursdays because of timetable class with another module.  I'll look into it

COMP7004 Class 02.1

We discussed what is meant by CyberEthics and whether it was a field of study distinct from regular ethic or just a subset of it.  We didn't really find an answer.

We looked at the sources of morality and considered Supernaturalism at length. I asked students to think of examples where supernaturalism is invoked in discussions about technology.  Generic engineering and reproductive rights were the two we could think of.

I mentioned Supernaturalism in debates about the environment. But the most interesting (but not convincing) I found are arguments like this against the use of RFID based on Revelations.

In discussions of CyberTechnoloy Supernatural arguments are rarely invoked.

COMP7004 Class 01.3

Thinking about the John Oliver video on Credit Scores from the last class I asked student to propose ideas that a government might use to make the problems less severe.

We came up with some suggestions and discussed them briefly.

We watched a video on the Social Credit system in P.R. China.  I asked the class how much of the problem stems fro the technology, and how much of it is about how it is used.  Someone pointed out that there is widespread surveillance in UK cities, but none of us would have any cause to be afraid.  So is it the technology itself, or how it is used? Is technology neutral? These are questions we will return to.


I asked students to speculate on which countries in Europe had citizens most paranoid about data privacy.  One student proposed Sweden and Finland, and speculated that this was connected the their proximity to Russia. I proposed Germany, because if it's past.

Full report: http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/flash/fl_225_en.pdf

It turns out Finns are super happy. It has been argued that fear about data protection is inversely correlated with trust I the government.  Finn trust their government. Germany came second.  The Austrians are most concerned.

COMP7004 Class 01.2

We started a bit late to give students time to arrive. However thanks to the snow and ice this morning only five students made it to class.

We watched a video about credit reports in the US.

We discussed how the situation is better in Europe due to Data Protection laws. Data Protection is one of the topics we will discuss in this module.

I gave out paper copies of the module descriptor and talked a bit about the assessment for this module.

Following on from today's class I asked student to read these articles:
Big Brother, Meet Big Data: China Invents the Digital Totalitarian State, The Economist, 17 Dec 2016
Could a Bank deny Your Loans Based on Your Facebook Friends, The Atlantic, 25 Sep 2015

SOFT7008 Week 01

I wasn't feeling well so I have to cancel the live session.

I asked students to watch Class 01 and Class 02.

Class 01

Class 02

Students should install XAMPP and get it working.

I will e-mail students about times for live support sessions this week for any students that need help.

COMP7004 Class 01.1

Class was cancelled because I had to be somewhere else.

SOFT7008 Week 12 Lecture

One student came to class to ask some questions. When he was done he left.  I waited for more, but none arrived.

I left at 1845.

SOFT7008 Week 11 Lecture

Nobody turned up. I waited until 1835.

SOFT7008 Week 10 Lecture

We went straight to the lab. I explained how TurnItIn works and talked students through how to interpret the headline score.

I tested code for students who were finished (or nearly) and helped with debugging. We wrapped up about 2130 since we had no break.

SOFT7008 Week 09 Lecture

I talked a little bit about the exam and the essays.

I explained hash functions on the board.

We adjourned to the lab at 1830 because getting the code sorted is our main priority now.

In the lab we looked at the PESEL again. If you are being pedantic you need to check the date and month. For simplicity any date that is <32 is good. But the month is more complicated:
If the m2 > 3 and the m1 is odd then it is bad

SOFT7008 Week 09 Videos

Class 17: Security. Hash Functions

This is the last video (unless I get inspired). In subsequent weeks we will recap anything that is unclear, and work in the labs on the assessments.

SOFT7008 Week 08 Lecture

In the lecture we briefly recapped on connecting to a Database. We spent most of the class discussing the assessments.

I showed students how to access the e-Journals on the CIT Library website.  IEEE and ACM are good places to look for authoritative articles.

At 1900-ish we moved to the lab. Students worked on the assignments.

SOFT7008 Week 08 Classes

Class 15: Database Consistency [& Normalization]

Class 16: Connecting to a Database

SOFT7008 Week 07 Lecture

I did a quick recap of relational databases, normalization, and SQL. I could tell from everyone's faces that it was news to nobody.

At 1900 we moved to the lab to work on this week's exercise.

SOFT7008 Week 07 Classes

This week we begin our look at Relational Databases & SQL

Class 13: Introduction to Databases

Class 14: Introduction to SQL

SOFT7008 Week 06 Lecture

We looked at the different ways to make data persist in PHP and how long it can last.  We also considered a bit how cookies can pose a threat to privacy.

SOFT7008 Week 05 lecture

Some students came to class despite the weather warning.

Students worked on the checksum exercises. We did some on the board.

SOFT6008 Week 06 Classes

Class 11: Remembering Values

Class 12: Cookies

More about cookies:

• http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/08/the-next-online-privacy-battle-powerful-supercookies/243800/
• http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/02/im-being-followed-how-google-151-and-104-other-companies-151-are-tracking-me-on-the-web/253758/
• http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/zombie-cookies-lawsuit/
• http://www.wired.com/business/2009/08/you-deleted-your-cookies-think-again/
• http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/02/google-safari-browser-cookie/
• http://www.wired.com/business/2010/12/zombie-cookie-settlement/
• https://www.cookielaw.org/
• https://www.aboutcookies.org/