Writing Assignment 6/ Diebold

After watching the Princeton video about Diebold, I realized many problems about e-voting that I have never thought of before. In fact, I used to think that after the 2000 presidential election, a form of e-voting would be more efficient and accurate.

Many people, (now including myself) are extremely worried about this method of voting because all of the corruption that can occur. At first I thought that certain politicians would have people go out and corrupt the votes, but the more I read and watched about this issue, I realized that radicals and people who may not want a certain figure in leadership could easily go out and alter the votes. What's even worse, is that there is no way of detecting that the machines were altered with.

If I had to design some kind of security measures in California for these voting machines, I would not allow people to vote behind the white curtains. I would make a person watch the e-voters (maybe face to face to ensure their privacy) to make sure that there was no corruption.

Writing Assignment 5/outsourcing

As a Communications Study major I think that outsourcing creates many communication issues for customers and tech support employees. Many people have difficulties understanding people with different accents than what they are used to. I don't think this is the larger part of the problem, but I do believe it's a fraction of the pie.

Cost issues are another issue. Companies such as Dell can pass discounts down to the customers by paying foreign workers less money. I don't think foreign employees are smarter or better educated, but I do believe that people in the United States will demand much more than others. Benefits and higher wages are something that most people in the US will demand or need.

In the end, I think it boils down to companies being profit driven. They are in the business to make money. Anything that can save them a penny and create bigger profits will interest them. If paying foreign employees to do their work will give them a bigger pay check then of course they will do it.

I never really considered outsourcing within my career. Now I'm confused about what positions could be sent to other places. This is definitely something that I need to look into now.

Writing Assignment 4/ E-Waste

Reading about all of the e-pollution that is going on in the world was really fascinating. I've always wondered what happens to all of the electronics that people throw out. In fact, I don't even know what to do with all of my old cell phones and junk- I still have them.

I think environmental groups, politicians and companies should get together to form a solution to this problem because shipping off our junk to third world nations obviously isn't the correct solution. As far as e-waste that gets sent to this places when the intended action was recycling, I really don't know what to say. Perhaps we can start by fining the companies/ shipping carriers that are responsible for this. We should also implement strong laws to prohibit this from reoccuring. More people need to be educated on this issue because I'm sure that millions of people are unaware of this huge problem.

I think it would also be effective for companies to inform their customers about how to properly dispose of their electronics. For example, when you purchase a new cell phone, the company could even offer a discount in exchange for their old phone and then they can make sure that it's disposed of correctly. People need to be held accountable for these actions.

I'm aware that we live in a throw away society and there are always new developments in the electronic world but I am cautious about purchasing products not only for financial reasons, but because I don't think I could ever keep up. The minute you buy something, there is a newer and better model. If I had the money then maybe I would buy more electronics but for now I'm happy with my really old lap top that works super slow.

Writing Assignment 3/ ICANN

The ICANN is a non profit organization based in the United States that regulates the internet address system, serving mainly for technical coordination. Some people are concerned with the functions of ICANN because they believe that they may have too much control. A decision must be made before ICANN is forced to hand over their control to the United Nations.

One of the main concerns regarding this issue is that the ICANN controls the domain names such as .net and .org. Some people would like to have a whole separate domain for pornographic sites in order to properly identify them, but others would rather not make it so obvious.

Some people who are anti ICANN would suggest that rather than one group controlling this organization, several multi-cultural nations should take over control. They also suggest allowing other non-government agencies take a part of this organization. Another main issue revolving the ICANN is that some people doubt their financial integrity and would like to subject them to random audits to make sure that they are properly functioning.

The opposition would recommend that the ICANN should remain as is. Their main argument is "if it's not broken then why fix it". They also do not want the internet to become a huge tug of war between several nations because having the internet operate in codes in various languages would complicate the entire web; making it difficult to navigate.

Based on the articles that I read, I would recommend to keep it as- for now.