Right now the idea of having a working eletronic voting system is really appealing. This would make the voting process easier and faster. If voting was as easy as punching in a few letters on a monitor, more people would vote. The problem with this is that the machines are not secure. The Diebold machines have many faults. The lack of a paper trail means that the data could be easily altered. Now, fixing an election would only require knowledge of how the Diebold machines function. The Princeton Center for Infortmation Policy demonstrated how "malicious" could easily steal votes. The video showed that even a preliminary test was fooled. If a group of people merely testing out the Diebold Machine can figure this out, then surely a group of people intent on fixing an election could. Also, if a power outage or surge occured, the machines could be damaged. The whole, burning of ballots and covers wouldn't even exist anymore. In making the voting process easier, we have also made fixing the elections easier.

If I was in charge of the elections, I would have an extremely high level of security. People would not be able to bring large bags or purses into the election. A video recording of the entire process would be kept (not aiming at the screen but at the voter). Also, if possible, the use of paper receipts would help. If each voter could keep a receipt it would help confirm the results.

Right now, the controversy of outsourcing has hit a high point as American companies are beginning to turn to foreign countries for work forces. In one area of the IT industries, many jobs are going over seas, at the same time, people are fighting to have foreign workers enter the United States. Different jobs require abilities. For example, jobs that go overseas must require a minimal amount of supervision and instruction. Jobs that must stay in close proximity are the ones that require careful attention and supervision. The issue that there are not enough qualified people in the United States may be due to the fact that our values are different from people from foreign countries. For example, people who say that American students are not as motivated may be right. People who grow up in a comfortable and wealthy country, they have less motivation to really work to change their "class" status. In countries where extreme poverty is common, the motivation to study and get a good job may be greater. The motivation there is not whether you can buy a 40 inch or 90 inch plasma tv, but whether or not you can feed your entire family. This is not to say that domestic people are less qualified, but this may explain why foreign students may be working so hard, it's not just a part of life they have to live out, it is something they must do.
As for my own career, I do not feel that I am threatened in any way. I plan to work with my father in an international company. Because I will be deciding whether to hire employees from the United States or foreign countries, the matter of outsourcing will affect me, but it will not take my job away. In the company I will be working in, Chinese make up the majority of the manufacturing staff. This is not to say sweat shop labor is occurring. Rather, they are paid extremetly well compared to an average Chinese wage, but they are paid much less than the minimum wage in the United States. Outsourcing is something that helps the industrialization of countries. For example, a few years ago, everything was made in Japan, and everything with a Made in Japan sticker was cheap and poorly made. Now, Japan has a great reputation for quality products. Then everything was made in Taiwan. Now it's China and Mexico's turn. The more money that goes into a country the more the country will begin to improve. Although I believe that outsourcing is a good thing, I have never been laid off because my job was being moved to India. I just experienced the part where cheap labor is available, and cheapers goods are available.

Today technological advances are happening at a exponentially rapid rate. The number of old devices like computer monitors and televisions are being replaced very quickly. The percentage of households with televisions and computers in the world are growing. As the availability of devices increase, the amount of waste is also increasing. In first world countries like the United States, the waste is deported so we do not have to personally deal with the dirty jobs. Countries like China, Nigeria and Taiwan are recycling the electronic waste, which is good, but they do it in environmentally detrimental ways. For a long time, Taiwan has been “recycling” old car batteries from the United States, but they have done so that lead contamination has seriously damaged their water supply. It has been estimated that Taiwan’s water will no longer be drinkable in less than ten years. In China, the rural villages where the electronic waste is disposed, hazardous chemicals seep into water supplies, workers inhale dangerous phosphor particles and the burning of toxic materials cause air pollution. Although the intention to recycle is a good one, we may be doing worst by recycling in an inefficient way. Everyone is caught in a terrible cycle, well developed countries will not stop using electronics. Because we won’t stop using electronics, we won’t stop cheaply disposing our electronic waste. Because foreign countries do not have the same environmental laws, they will continue to salvage what they can from the waste even if it’s in a detrimental manner. What we need is a set of international environmental laws. It doesn’t matter how far one country is from another, if it’s two miles or two oceans, water and air pollution affects the entire planet. Everything we do to harm the Earth has many effects that go past simply deforesting an area or creating smog in another. If we have a UN, maybe we should focus on things other than wars and politics sometime, if we screw up the planet we don’t get redo’s, there won’t be a planet to live on, much less war on.

ICANN is an organization which manages the “assignment of domain names and IP addresses” for the internet. Currently there is a lot of controversy over why ICANN, an American organization is the one to basically run the internet. Foreign countries want to denationalize because they do not agree with the United State’s “dominance of the Internet's domain name system”.
For many foreign countries, the use of their language on the internet makes it difficult for international communications. Also, different countries have different laws and the fact that ICANN is based in the United States can raise issues. “A system of Internet law, meantime, is evolving, and there are neutral legal forums available to air grievances and right wrongs”.
While some people are urging denationalization, others believe that there is no need to change anything about ICANN.
"If there was ever a time to invoke the maxim, 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it,' this is it," said Morris, who also served as a senior official in the Justice Department in Washington.”
"The Internet is an agreement to use a small number of communications protocols, and it needs almost no governance at all,"
ICANN is trying to evolve with the fast pace the internet is growing globally, perhaps they deserve a chance to catch up before any large changes are made.

Personally, I do not mind if the government has access to my personal data. To a certain extent, I believe the “if you’ve done nothing wrong you shouldn’t fear the government” motto. I am not into any terrorist plots and I most probably will never be. The fact that my groceries may be monitored is also more or less irrelevant to me. I do not buy industrial size cleaning products and cough medicine. The government may find out that I like to buy tampons and diet orange soda, this is not a issue to me. However, if the government began to change its agenda, which happens quite often, I may begin to care whether or not my actions are being monitored. Surveillance teamed with an overzealous and conservative government may become an issue to me. Like in the movie V for Vendetta, random houses are monitored and people are arrested for being gay or non Christian. This I would have a problem with. But for now, since the government is surveying us to “keep us safe from the terrorists” I don’t mind. For example, a few weeks ago, terrorists with explosives hidden in water bottles were caught. If no precautions were taken, many innocent lives could have been lost. So, like most things, I think government monitoring is ok to a certain degree.
Companies separate from the government collecting personal data is not as “ok” with me. In class when Mr. Brooks showed us that you could find someone’s location by simply searching their phone number, I was alarmed. Personal safety becomes an issue. For example, a girl in class shared that one of her friends was attacked and robbed because of this particular search feature on the internet. I think it is very wrong for search engines to reveal such personal information. Because of security reasons I tend not to give out my social security number or credit card numbers unless I’m obligated to (USF). Yes, the line between a trustworthy site and a non trust worthy site is hard to draw, but it has to be done. This is why more and more credit card companies now offer fraud protection etc.
Although I am not comfortable with the idea of companies on the internet collecting my information, I do not mind when sites like Amazon.com tracks the products I buy. The suggested items on the homepage are often interesting to look at. I do not feel obligated to buy them, but sometimes the lists show something I am interested in buying. Yes, this is the company’s way of persuading me to send more money, but why else would I be on a shopping site?