Homework 7:

Due: Tuesday October 29, 2019 at 9:00PM EST.

Handin

After completing the homework, you will submit:

If you are using late days, make sure to make a note of that in your readme. Remember, you may only use a maximum of 3 late days per assignment. If the assignment is late (and you do NOT have anymore late days) no credit will be given.

The Assignment

No coding for the homework this week! Good luck with design checks :)

README.txt

Fill out your README as usual, but this week there will be an additional portion, which is the ethics assignment.

Ethics Assignment

Additional responses required for this week will pertain to the ethics assignment.

Beyond teaching you some technical skills around computing and data, CS111 also wants to help you think about some of the broader societal issues surrounding data and computing. To this end, we will have a few short reading assignments that ask you to reflect on implications and possible principles of working with computing and data. This is the third such assignment.

We estimate this assignment will take less than an hour.

Topic: Personal Data and Social Engineering

Read this New York Times article about the use of online ad campaigns to manipulate behavior (content warning: this article mentions suicide attempts). If necessary, use this guide to access the New York Times through a free academic pass. Then, answer three of the four questions listed below.

If you’re curious, feel free to read these articles about data inference technology and targeted advertising. You may incorporate information from these articles in your responses, but you are not required to.

You’ll put your answers to the following questions in the README, clearly marking which answers belong to which questions. Your answer to each question should be a few sentences long—aim for thoughtfulness over length! Your answers should be clear and concise and should demonstrate serious reflection, but there are no right or wrong answers.

Answer any three of the four questions below:

  1. What are some potential steps Google could take to ensure their redirection campaign tools are not abused?
  2. Given its potentially beneficial and malicious uses, to what extent should Google make their redirection campaign blueprint available to the public?
  3. The use of mass marketing techniques to influence consumer behavior is not new. However, the increasing availability of personal data and accuracy of data inference technology can make advertisements more targeted and influential. To what extent do you believe the targeted advertising and “social engineering” tactics described in the article present new ethical challenges?
  4. The author writes that the public needs “a free blueprint on how to use Google defensively.” Do you have any recommendations for how individuals should modify their behavior given the information in the article(s)?

Grading

We will check that your responses:

Brown University CSCI 0111 (Fall 2019)
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