taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (06/25/86)
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Computers and Society Digest, Number 16
Thursday, February 27th 1986
Topics of discussion in this issue...
The reporter mentioned in the last issue...
More on Interface Design
On the security of computerized voting
Our Economy Is Based On Electricity
Knowing about how things work
[Editors Note: I've heard from a few readers that this digest isn't in the
correct format for some digest readers...if you have any problems with this
format yourself, please drop me a line indicating what's different about
this versus other digests. Conversely, if this works fine with your soft-
ware, drop me a line too, so I can weight the two sides... -- Dave]
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Date: Tue, 25 Feb 86 08:30 EST
From: hplabs!Holleran@DOCKMASTER.ARPA (Jack Holleran)
Subject: The reporter mentioned in the last issue...
Dave,
The person who wrote the articles on teenage hackers was Richard Sandza,
a reporter from Newsweek. He was located in San Francisco but is now
located in Washington. To my knowledge, he still works for Newsweek.
(You can check the masthead listing of reporters near the front of the
magazine).
Jack
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From: "David England" <hp-pcd!cmcl2!seismo!unido!comp.lancs.ac.uk!de>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 86 12:59:40 gmt
Subject: More on Interface Design
Re: Harry Delugach's comments in C & S Digest #10.
I agree with Harry Delugach that rapid prototyping is really useful tool for
interface designers and I have had brief experience with RAPID/USE and the
CONNECT systems. They do have their limitations e.g. lack of flexibility in
interaction styles which lead to some fudging but any limitations are
outweighed by the advantages. The problem I have is that in my particular
project we have had to write our own prototyping/dialogue manager system
to meet our needs, we still need incremental/iterative design techniques
to fill in the gaps.
I think this topic needs further discussion as there are still
designers/programmers out there who leave evaluation to the test phase of
the developement cycle. They might be helped by an awareness of the
advantages of evaluation throughout the cycle especially in design.
As a matter of interest I'd like to know what HCI content Computer Science
and Psychology courses have in the States? Is HCI and HCI design a
teachable topic? (Is it mature enough ?) A similar survey is currently
being carried out in the UK by the government backed Alvey initiative.
UUCP : ..!seismo!mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!de ARPA : de%lancs.comp@ucl-cs
JANET : de@uk.ac.lancs.comp PHONE : +44 524 65201 Ext. 4586
POST : Univ. of Lancaster, Dept of Computing, Lancaster LA1 4YR, UK.
PROJECT : Alvey ECLIPSE User Interface
[Editors note: just a caution that we're more interested in the impact of
the computer on society, not the tools used to create a particular
interface...]
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Date: Tuesday, 25 Feb 1986 04:45:16-PST
From: Kurt Hyde at DEC
Subject: On the security of computerized voting
[from Risks Forum, Volume 2 Issue 16]
How secure are computerized voting booths?
I teach Systems Analysis at a local college here in Nashua, NH. For the
last two years, my students and I have been studying the impact of
computerization on voting security. The recent charges of fraud in Mexican
and Phillipine elections increase the importance of such studies as
computers are now being implemented into three areas of voting --
maintaining voter registration lists, tallying of votes, and directly
computerized voting.
Last year's class discovered that an OEM was manufacturing a computerized
voting booth. Further research has revealed that the company's strategy for
ensuring security is secrecy of operation. Secrecy of operation increases
the difficultly in penetration, but it also has a negative side effect of
making it difficult (if not impossible) to detect tampering.
There are many documented cases of accidental miscalculation in computerized
vote tallying equipment. The reasons why such errors were discovered is
because reconstruction and recount was possible. Investigators
reconstructed by gathering the machine-readable ballots. They were then
able to recount by machine or by hand. Such reconstruction is impossible
with the current state of the art in computerized voting booths because no
physical ballots are created. Recounts in such cases are wholly dependent
upon the software to have stored each vote in its proper storage location at
the time of voting.
As far as I can tell, no computerized voting booth has ever been subjected
to product testing by hackers. I discussed this with the chief engineer at
the first company to make computerized voting booths. He agreed with me in
a phone conversation that such testing would be nice and that he was open to
the idea. However, the only way to get something done in this area is for
concerned citizens to try it. There are now at least three companies either
making or planning to make computerized voting booths and, according to the
FEC, they all intend to rely on secrecy of operation for security. Oddly,
none of the companies have named their flagship products "The Titanic".
Do you think these people have developed perfect, unbreakable codes? Some
associates of mine and I think not. In fact, we have begun to formulate
some testing strategies...[section removed]
Perhaps we can avoid having a Marcos-Aquino style problem here in America.
Kurt
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Date: Tue, 25 Feb 86 11:47 EST
From: Jared M. Spool at Stony Brook
Subject: Our Economy Is Based On Electricity
[from Risks Forum, Volume 2 Issue 16]
Last week, on payday, I was informed from our efficient payroll department
that my bank account would not be credited with my automatic deposit of my
paycheck for a couple of days. The reason that was given was a "Power
Blackout In The LA area". (Our payroll is handled out of our LA office,
while R&D is on the east coast. I don't know the reason for this
polarization. I think it has to do with opposites repelling or something.)
A lot of our economy is based on things that use electricity. While battery
backups are not uncommon in computer systems, what percentage can withstand
a 24 hour blackout? How about 48 hours?
If NY were hit with a 48 hour blackout, what would happen to the NYSE?
I realize that there are lots of social things that happen during blackouts
(like rioting and baby booms), but these things tend to be localized to the
area of the outage. But, as I stated above, I need a cross country
connection to get paid. How much of our economy would be downed because of
something like this?
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 86 16:30:06 MST
From: hpcnou!dat (Dave Taylor)
Subject: Knowing about how things work
[from "Science News" magazine, February 22nd, 1986]
Knowing Little About How Things Work
------------------------------------
I. Peterson
At a time when television broadcasts, newspapers, magazines, advertise-
ments and political speeches are regularly sprinkled with technical terms, the
U.S. public often has little idea what the terms mean. A recent probe of tech-
nological literacy conducted for the National Science Foundation (NSF) shows
that only 31 percent of about 2,000 people surveyed by telephone have a clear
understanding of radiation, 27 percent understand what gross national product
(GNP) means and 24 percent understand what computer software is. [!] Just one
in five think they know how a telephone works.
The same poll, conducted late last year by John D. Miller, director of
the public opinion laboratory at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb shows
that about two in five people believe that rocket launchings have affected the
weather, that space vehicles from other civilizations have visited the earth
and that lucky numbers exist. Overall, on a rough index of technological
literacy, people from 18 to 24 years old - those most recently in high school -
had a significantly lower rating than all other age groups except for those
over 65.
"It is clear that young Americans just emerging from their formal edu-
cation are not as likely to be technologically literate as somewhat older
adults," says Miller. He presented his preliminary survey results last week
in Baltimore at a conference on technological literacy.
"The technologically literate person should understand how basic tech-
nologies work, which aspects are changeable and which are not, and some of the
impacts and implications of major technologies," Miller says. "Increasingly
the issues on the public agenda are going to be issues that involve some aspect
of technology."
Ironically, these results come at a time when public interest in science
is relatively high. In another recently published NSF survey, almost half of
the respondents report great interest in new inventions and scientific discov-
eries. Your people, regardless of grade level, are particularly interested.
Nevertheless, "interest is not the same as literacy or competence,"
says Erich Bloch, NSF director. About three quarters of those interested in
science and technology admit they don't know very much about either one, he
adds.
"What we have," says Miller, "is a large number of people who believe
in science, who have unrestrained faith in it, but who haven't the foggiest
notion why it happens." The biggest problem is not hostility to science,
but that people deal with it as i it were magic, he says. Moreover, people
tend to confuse real or likely technologies and fictional ones.
[the article continues to discuss the ramifications on schooling and so on]
[Anyone who has access to the NSF report(s) or information on the conference
mentioned is invited to send it to the digest. -- Dave]
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End of Computers and Society Digest
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