Privacy on Networked Computers

Once you start using the Internet, you no longer have that much control over exposure of personal information. When you register to some social network, you may provide your personal information about your name, photos, birthdates; when you search something using a search engine, it may record your preference based on your searches. Even though there are certain terms or policies claiming that those related companies will not release clients' personal information to others, you will never be sure whether they would.

However, does it mean that we should just give up using the internet and return to the old century? Apparently the answer is no. With the convenience brought from the internet, many people would just ignore the fact that they are also sharing information with undesired users. A risk to that is those people that are careless about privacy may encounter harms caused by exposing too much personal information through networks.

As a result, the best way is really to stay in the middle, which means that people should be aware that they may be sharing information with unintended audiences but should also avoid being overly concerned about privacy issues. Some tips to that are to use complex passwords and regularly change them, periodically clear your history, using trusted websites etc.

Assignments

Last week, I got feedbacks from all my previous assignments like the Wikipedia assignment and project #1 and I also handed in project #2 waiting for grading. I am pretty happy that I got full marks for both Wikipedia part 2 and project 1; and the results are just like what I expected. As for project 2, I still think I did very well on that since I successfully completed all definitions or check-expects labeled as "!!!" and the programs ran properly when I tested them.

So far, I am quite worried about my SLOG assignment as I am writing it. I saw some other people's SLOGs and many of them used pretty background and decorations whereas I chose the simplest format when I set up this blog. I truly hope that this would not be that significant.

Term Test #2

Last week we got our second term test back, and the result is as I expected. I did reached my goal of getting an A; however, I still think that I could do better after carefully examine the test. As usual, the main places where I lost points are the first two questions about the general knowledge of computer programming and the Dr. Racket's part was done well. However, I should be more specific when describing what Dr. Racket would produce (like diameter of 5 instead of size 5) to get full marks for that part. As for my weaknesses of the first two questions, I really should gain more information about the topics covered in the "longer notes" and try to think what kinds of questions may be tested before the exam. I hope that practices like that would help me do better in the final exam with regards to those type of questions.