As I’ve transitioned from high school, to college, to work, and now back to graduate school; the tide of debt just seems to keep on rising.  I suppose it’s a normal occurence that pretty much everybody goes through.  But, it seems as though law school is going to bring about a substantial amount of debt in just a short 3-year span.  Depending on which school I go to, I could be looking at as much as $100k+ in student loans if I’m not able to secure some scholarships or grants.  The only light at the end of the tunnel is that I could start out making around $100k according to a partner in one of Atlanta’s law firms that I’ve had an opportunity to talk with. 

Ultimately, I believe going to law school is the right decision for me.  I’ve spent enough time in the web development field to know that it’s not what I want to do for the rest of my life.  I honestly never really intended to go into web development after college.  My intentions were more closely aligned with becoming a .NET developer.  However, I’ve somehow seemed to have developed a special niche for myself as part programmer and part designer.

Nonetheless, my interests now lean towards intellectual property.  It’s something that I’ve had to deal with in my current position and something that I’ve enjoyed discussing in a few of the courses I took while obtaining my B.S.C.S.  When it’s all said and done will I come to the same conclusion that I have about web development?  Perhaps, but I’m willing to go the distance to find out.  If it results in a higher quality of life for myself, and not just in monetary figures, then I think it will be well worth the time, money, and effort.

Email has grown to be a part of everybody’s lives. We use it to contact friends and family, submit resumes to potential employers, and unfortunately many people also use it to submit the same stupid jokes over and over(I know who you are! stop sending them to me!). With it we’ve also developed some basic “unspoken” rules that we tend to think everybody will abide by. For example, when you send an email, you expect the recipient to keep it private and not forward or show it to anybody.

This gives us a general sense of privacy. But, is your email really private? 

Many of us have taken classes in which we were instructed to get a campus email address.  This was so that the professor can notify us about course updates if the need arises.  However, the result of this is a large number of students using campus email for more than just communication between other students for their registered courses.  Thus, simply by using campus email, students have inadvertently left their information vulnerable.

To explain why, one simply needs to look at the Federal Records Act.

The Federal Records Act
The Federal Records Act was established to control the creation, management, and disposal of government records. Under the Federal Records Act, a document qualifies as a “record” if it meets the two conditions below:

1. “Made or received by an agency of the United States Government under Federal law or in connection with the transaction of public business”; and

2. “Preserved or appropriate for preservation by that agency…as evidence of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities of the Government or because of the informational value of the data in them.”

Under those conditions, the privacy of your campus email can be virtually erased.   It’s not a stretch to see how Professor/student email can be considered part of government activities/business. The Department of Education (DoE) is part of the U.S. government and all publicly funded universities fall under the umbrella of the DoE. So, it is very possible that the email activity of all of those working for and enrolled with the universities can be exposed to the Federal Records Act.

So how would this affect anything?

If you can just delete your email at your own volition, why would your email activity matter?  The reason is because a federal court of appeals ruled that government email systems contain “records”, in a case between the Executive Office of the President and the National Security Council. Therefore, any email between the two was/is subject to public disclosure. Additionally, the courts ruled that since email was a “record”, the agencies must retain and manage those documents. The emails couldn’t simply be erased on a whim. This ruling has dissuaded some away from even using email because anything and everything perceived as a “record” must be channeled in such a way so that it can be recorded as a public record.

Thus, even if you do delete the email from your account, it’s possible that a record of it still exists somewhere.

However, I’m not accusing my own alma mater, Southern Polytechnic State University, of doing anything wrong.  They have clearly made note in their Acceptable Use Policy, under section 3.1, that the use of their system is at your own risk. 

The Acceptable Use Policy is available online at: http://www.spsu.edu/infotech/policies/summary.html#3.1 and has been printed below for your convenience.  

Section 3.1 of the Acceptable Use Policy
”To the greatest extent possible in a public setting, SPSU desires to preserve individuals’ privacy. Electronic and other technological methods must not be used to infringe upon privacy. However, users must recognize that Southern Polytechnic State University computer systems and networks are public and subject to the Georgia Open Records Act. E-mail, messaging, and file storage/transfer services provided through state-owned facilities cannot be considered private. Users, thus, utilize such systems at their own risk.”

References
CyberLaw by Jonathan Rosenoer
Southern Polytechnic State University Acceptable Use Policy

One of the most searched terms for my website is “Ghost Fleet”, so I thought I’d take some time to post some actual information about the real Ghost Fleet as opposed to just my story by the same title.

The Ghost Fleet is a fleet of transportation rigs (tractor trailers) operated by a public company in cooperation with the United States government.  It’s primary purpose is to transport unknown items to various locations across the U.S. without the general public being able to distinguish them from the other tractors on the road.  Most of the trucks are equipped with GPS units and remote control mechanisms.

These remote control mechanisms allow for dispatch to shutdown a truck should it be hijacked or taken off course by the driver.  The drivers are also monitored and are required to report in during specified intervals or…have their rig remotely shutdown.

Obviously, some very important equipment gets transported by the Ghost Fleet.  I’ve read from various sources that specialized aircraft equipment has been transported this way.  But, it would definitely be interesting to see what else is on the roads with us.  How comfortable would you be knowing that the big rig going down the road beside you was caring the next generation of military weapons?

One of the things I also found interesting was that the company that runs these trucks has a separate department specifically for the Ghost Fleet.  Nobody outside of this department has any clue where the tractors within the fleet are.

HAL: Hello Dave.
Me: Uh…hi HAL, call me Zach.
HAL: Why would I do that?
Me: It’s my name.
HAL: I do not understand.
Me: No doubt.
HAL: Hello Dave.
Me: Goodbye HAL.

The saying goes that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.  But, in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) does such a saying apply?  Is it possible to create a device that has an intelligence that is superior to that of its creator(s) or are all man made devices destined to be bound by man’s own intellect?

The question is short and simple.  But, a quick search reveals many varying opinions on the subject.  One such response is that no computer will be able to rival, and/or exceed, man’s intelligence simply because of the methods used to program such logic. 

It’s stated that a computer is and always will be limited in it’s responses to any given question by the logic of the program defining it.

But, that’s true of all organisms.  If you make the analogy that a program’s logic is equal to an organic organism’s knowledge, then an organism’s responses are also limited by the amount of logic it has. The only difference is that the program has specialized logic that is severely limited in what it can handle. Versus the organic organism’s “logic” which is designed to handle a much broader and more general range of topics and situations.

Princeton Definition

Intelligence: the ability to comprehend; to understand and profit from experience

Smart: showing mental alertness and calculation and resourcefulness

Given the definitions above, any type of computer controlled device can be made intelligent.  IBM’s Deep Blue could be considered intelligent since it can profit by reviewing hundreds of thousands of previous moves in a variety of situations.  But, it wouldn’t necessarily be smart.  If you took Deep Blue and tried to have it play Frisbee, a relatively simple task for humans, it would be incapable of doing so.  Although it may have some intelligence, it lacks the ability/resourcefulness to harness this intelligence for other applications.

Another question to ask is whether or not human intelligence is necessarily a way to a superior mode of thinking? For example, would we want computers to approach problems in the same manner that we would?  Our approach to making new discoveries is more along the lines of trial and error/brute force.  Many of our amazing discoveries were not so much out of our own brilliance, but of our own clumsiness (Vulcanized rubber….microwave…dynamite).  I suppose some credit has to be given to the inventors for being able to realize when they had something good.  But, is this the way we would want our electronic devices to “think”?

This brings us back to the original question, given this information, can humans create a computer or electronic device that can match or exceed its own intelligence?  My own belief is that it is possible, but not probable.  Should it ever happen, I believe it will be something we’ll have to study in order to fully understand HOW we did it.

In trying to install the video drivers in SUSE, I’ve some how fluxed up the OS.  It won’t even pull up in Failsafe mode, it just does a coredump (that even sounds pretty bad).  So, now I’m back in Windows.  Somehow, this experience calls back to the days when I experienced the same problems with Windows.  Now instead of a blue screen of death, it’s a black screen of text. Fun.  But, I have seen some of what Linux is capable of…..if I could just get it to work on my system, that’d be great.