Technology's Negative Impacts on Society

The assignment requires students to explore the potential negative effects of information systems and technologies on society. They must find and summarize a resource that details one specific example where technology use has led to negative outcomes for humans. The provided example focuses on Hershey's failed ERP implementation, illustrating the significant financial losses and reputational damage caused by inadequate system testing and deployment.

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Week 1
The text discusses the elements of modern computing architecture however is largely silent
on the individuals who played a role in its development. Find and summarise a resource that
describes ONE such individual. The individual should have had a significant influence on the
development of computers and/or components of modern computing architecture.
Title: John McCarthy: Computer scientist and the father of AI
Reference: Childs, M. (2017). John McCarthy: Computer scientist known as the father of AI.
[online] The Independent. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/john-
mccarthy-computer-scientist-known-as-the-father-of-ai-6255307.html [Accessed 18 Sep.
2017].
URL: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/john-mccarthy-computer-scientist-
known-as-the-father-of-ai-6255307.html
Summary:
The article describes the contribution of one individual in development of modern architecture.
John Mccarthy, who is also known as the father of artificial intelligence is mentioned in this
article and his contribution in development of modern computer architecture is structurally

presented in this resource. I chose this article as this article not only elaborates the
contribution of McCarthy in development of modern computer architecture, but also provides
substantial knowledge about his other tasks as well. The article briefly describes the life of
John McCarthy and his works as a computer scientist pioneer. The article highlights the
invention and development of a specific computer language called Lisp computer language
that is used as a standard AI programming language even today. Moreover, this computer
language is used in different application of robotics and in different internet based services as
well. It further paved the way for voice recognition technology that has extensive use in
development of Siri, the personal assistant of iPhone.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this article is that, it highlights the contribution of
McCarthy in time sharing or networking. This process allowed user to share data, by linking it
to a central computer, thus lowering the cost of using computers. This innovation paved the
way for development of internet and further helped in precursor of cloud computing. I found
this article useful as it clearly described the contribution of John McCarthy in development of
modern computer architecture and his inventions in this field.
Week 2
The text discusses the components and activities of operating systems however is largely
silent on the individuals who played a role in their development. Find and summarise a
resource that describes ONEsuch individual. The individual should have had a significant
influence on the writing or development of operating systems.
Title: Linus Torvalds and the History of Linux kernel
Reference: Operating-system.org. (2017). History of the Linux Kernel. [online] Available at:
http://www.operating-system.org/betriebssystem/_english/bs-linux.htm [Accessed 18 Sep.
2017].
URL: http://www.operating-system.org/betriebssystem/_english/bs-linux.htm
Summary:
The article elaborates the contribution of Linus Torvals in development of Linux kernel, the
operating system which is used even today. I chose this article as it not only highlights the
process of development of Linux, but also describes the contribution of Linus Torvalds in
development of an operating system. Linux operating system was developed with an aim of
integrating the MINIX operating system.
In this article, the author elaborates the development of Linux operating system as by Linus
Torvalds in the year 1991. Linus had been using Minix, which is a unix like operating system,
but began working with his own kernel.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this article is that, A completely new operating system
was developed with a simple idea of implementing few new things in an already developed
operating system. Linus had been using the Minix operating system in his university, but did
not find the terminal emulator in Minix quite acceptable. In order to develop a better terminal
emulator with more functions on the hardware level, Linus started working on the terminal
emulator. Apart from that, he started programming his own drivers and the new software thus
developed was able to upload and download files from internet. This resulted in the
development of Linux operating from scratch. Since the new operating system Linux had
some features of MINIX as well, it was called Linux.
The simple idea of incorporating certain new ideas resulted in the development of a
completely new operating system. I found this article useful as it clearly showcased the
contribution of Linus Torvals and his dedication in development of a new Operating system.

Week 3
The Internet didn’t just appear – it was an evolution from earlier networks. Find and
summarise a resource that describes ONEof the networks that led to the development of the
modern Internet.
Title: NSF Network
Reference: Livinginternet.com. (2017). NSFNET, National Science Foundation Network.
[online] Available at: https://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_nsfnet.htm [Accessed 18 Sep. 2017].
URL: https://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_nsfnet.htm
Summary:
The chosen article describes the evaluation of modern internet due to an evolution of earlier
networks. The example of one such network is National Science Foundation Network or
NSFNET. I chose this article as this article concisely describes the evaluation of modern
internet and the different features of NSFNET. This network was developed in order to
develop a connection and communication channel for supercomputers. This network was the
backbone for connecting the different regional network for every supercomputer site.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this article is that, it clearly explains the evolution of
NSFNET from a network of a speed on only 56 kbps to a network that deliverers a speed of
nearly 1.5 Mbps. The steady evolution of NFSNET led to the dissolving of the military
sponsored ARPANET in the year 1990. The NFSNET is a wide area network developed in
order to replace THE ARPANET, in order to become the main network for linking the research
facilities. From the article it can b clearly said that NFSNET was successful in replacing the
ARPANET.
The article clearly depicts National Science Foundation Network as a major force in
development of computing infrastructure and different network services. NSFNET was
successful in creating a network of networks that laid the foundation of modern internet.
I found this article useful as it clearly defines the journey of modern internet. In the year 1995,
the NFSNET was dismantled as the commercial internet replaced the National Science
Foundation Network.
Week 4
Ethernet is an example of a Layer Two (L2) data link protocol that is discussed in the text.
Find and summarise a resource that describes the features and uses of ONE other L2
protocol that is not discussed in the text (i.e. NOT Ethernet).
Title : Token Ring Protocol
Reference: Datacottage.com. (2017). How Token Ring Works. [online] Available at:
http://www.datacottage.com/nch/troperation.htm#.Wb-hqsgjHIV [Accessed 18 Sep. 2017].
URL: http://www.datacottage.com/nch/troperation.htm#.Wb9iO8gjHIU
Summary:
This article elaborates the use and the working principle of one of the layer 2 data link
protocol, the token ring. Token ring makes use of a structured ring like topology to send data
from machine to machine. I chose this article as it explains the token ring protocol in brief and
illustrates with diagrammatic examples, the working principal and the procedure of
transferring a message using tokens, to prevent any sorts of collision in the machine or a

network. In this protocol, a machine can only use a network, only if it has control of a token.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this article is that, it illustrates, how in this network, all
the computers are connected in a ring like topology and the flow of information from computer
to computer in a systematic way. Token ring network is a local area network and in generally
used to prevent the collision of data between the computers. This is ascertained by ensuring
that only the node or station that has token is allowed to use the network. I found this article
useful as it provided a clear description of the basic operation of token ring. Token rings are
rarely used now since the ETHERNET dominates the market. Ethernet dominates the market
because of its low cost and offers more flexibility than Token ring. The pros and cons of this
protocol and its architecture is clearly defined and discussed in this article and therefore, I
found this article of great help.
Week 5
The text mentions the role of hackers in attacks on networked infrastructure. Find and
summarise a resource that describes ONE famous or well-known hacker.
Title: Gary McKinnon: the most famous computer hacker
Reference: Newstatesman.com. (2017). America versus the hacker. [online] Available at:
http://www.newstatesman.com/law-and-reform/2010/06/mckinnon-case-extradition [Accessed
18 Sep. 2017].
URL: http://www.newstatesman.com/law-and-reform/2010/06/mckinnon-case-
extradition
Summary:
This article describes the role of one of the most famous hackers, Gary McKinnon in attacks
on a networked infrastructure. I chose this article as it discusses about the most famous
hacker, Gary McKinnon who hacked into the computer systems of NASA and US defence
department for searching the information about UFOs. McKinnon was accused of hacking into
97 united states military and NASA computers and deleted crucial files from the operating
system that resulted in shutting down of the Army’s military network of 2000 computers for
24hours.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this article is that it highlights the life of Gary
McKinnon and discusses in brief the different cases of hacking he was connected to. Gary
McKinnon was accused of copying data, account files and confidential passwords into his
own computer. The problem thus caused needed correction, which costed more than
$700000. The article describes how a patient of Asperger’s syndrome was able to hack into
one of the most secure networks. He was further accused of deleting the logs of Earle naval
weapon station paralysing for over 300 computers.
I found this article useful as provided a detailed insight of the UFO hacker McKinnon and the
different hacking cases with which he was associated. However, he never admitted all these
allegations but did admit of leaving a threat in NASA computers. He is known as UFO hacker
as his primary aim of hacking into NASA computer was to fetch information about the UFOs.

Week 6
Society is increasingly reliant on networks and network technologies but they are evolving at
a rapid pace. Find and summarise a resource that describes ONE example of a future
networking technology or trend that will impact society.
Title: Web of Things
Reference: Guinard, D. (2017). What is the Web of Things? – Web of Things. [online]
Webofthings.org. Available at: https://webofthings.org/2017/04/08/what-is-the-web-of-things/
[Accessed 18 Sep. 2017].
URL: https://webofthings.org/2017/04/08/what-is-the-web-of-things/
Summary:
The article describes one of the future networking trend that has an increasing possibility of
impacting the society. The article discusses one future-networking trend, which is known as
the web of things. I chose this article, as it provides detailed information about this future
trend and discusses the possibility of this future trend to leave an impact in the society. The
technology of internet of things is most common in today’s world. The web of things is further
refinement of internet of things.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this article is that it explains the phenomenon of web
of things, which is integrating the smart things not only to the internet but to a web
architecture as well. The article discuses the layered architecture of web of things, which
consists of compose, share, find and access layer. The article further elaborates the working
principal of these layers.
Web of things is a high-level application that can be designed to increase the interoperability
of internet of things. The web of things is next generation technology of connecting anything
in the physical world. I found this article useful as it explains the different aspect of this future
technology or trend. This technology has the capability to connect all the physical devices
and object to a common network. This will further help people in controlling all their devices
with ease. This technology will allow the physical objects to become a part of the world wide
web, and therefore, there is a high possibility of this becoming a leading trend in future.
Week 7
The text mentions social business and the impact of the use of social networking platforms.
Find and summarise a resource that describes the history of the development of ONE such
social media platform.
Title: Development of Twitter
Reference: Lifewire. (2017). The History of Twitter You Didn't Know. [online] Available at:
https://www.lifewire.com/history-of-twitter-3288854 [Accessed 18 Sep. 2017].
URL: https://www.lifewire.com/history-of-twitter-3288854
Summary:
The article elaborates the development of a popular social media platform, Twitter. I chose
this article as it describes in brief the idea and the reason behind the development of this
social media platform and the process of it becoming one of the most popular social business
platform. Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams developed twitter with an aim of developing a SMS
based communication platform so that their group of friends can keep a tab with each other.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this article is that how a simple idea of developing a
platform for messaging gave rise to the development of one of the most popular social media
platform. Today twitter has more than 2000 million active users with almost 460000 new
accounts being created on a daily basis. The twitter was previously known as twttr as it was

one of the popular trends of that time to drop the vowels from the name of companies and
services. The idea behind developing Twitter was not only the development of a platform that
can send messages to cell phone, but also the reinvention of a somewhat dying company. I
found this article useful as it discusses the different phases of development of twitter. The
name twitter was derived and inspired from the name of a photo-sharing site Flick. The
dictionary definition of twitter is “ a short burst of inconsequential information”. The character
limit of twitter is 140 as the sms carrier limit is 160.
Week 8
With the advent of mass data collection and storage has come data mining. Find and
summarise a resource that describes ONE example where data mining has been used
successfully by a business. You should not use any examples covered in the textbook.
Title: Netflix in data mining
Reference: (2017). How Netflix Uses Analytics To Select Movies, Create Content, & Make
Multimillion Dollar Decisions. [online] Available at: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/how-netflix-
uses-analytics/ [Accessed 18 Sep. 2017].
URL: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/how-netflix-uses-analytics/
Summary:
The article describes the advent of using mass data collection and storage for improving the
business purposes. The method of data mining can be used for gaining an additional
accuracy that might help in improving the business purposes. I chose this article as it
provides a detailed insight of processes of using data mining in improving the business
perspective of Netflix.
Netflix uses the process of data mining, in order to gain insight of the likes and dislikes of its
customers. Netflix is one of the largest online streaming television networks and therefore, a
large number of data is gathered every day. The business is expanding to a number of
different countries. Therefore, it is essential for Netflix to know about the preferences of
customers.
Perhaps the most important aspect of this article is that, it illustrates how Netflix uses the
process of data mining in improvising their business processes by knowing the preferences of
the customers. The data that are mainly scanned by Netflix includes the watching behaviour,
the time slots of watching, and the frequency of pause, rewinding and fast forwarding, and the
date of watching.
I found this article useful as elaborates the insight of the business strategy Netflix undertakes
in order to meet the demand of its customers. The data mining process used by Netflix uses a
well refined algorithm that is used in mining the information about the users. This article
clearly elaborates the importance and usage of mass data collection and storage of that data
in improvising the business.

Week 9
One of the greatest success stories in application development in recent times has been the
popularity of mobile apps. Find and summarise a resource that describes the story of ONE
successful mobile app developer.
Title: Jan Koum
Reference: Medium. (2017). 5 Things You Can Learn From The Story Of WhatsApp – The
Story Of Grip – Medium. [online] Available at: https://medium.com/the-story-of-grip/5-things-
every-founder-can-learn-from-the-story-of-whatsapp-b6496bc4f54d [Accessed 18 Sep. 2017].
URL: https://medium.com/the-story-of-grip/5-things-every-founder-can-learn-from-the-story-
of-whatsapp-b6496bc4f54d
Summary:
The article discusses the success story of one of the famous mobile app developer Jan Koum
and along with his partner Brian Acton. I chose this article because it clearly explains the
contribution and dedication of Jan Koum in developing one of the most popular mobile
applications of recent times, the watsapp. Millions of users communicate with their friends
and family using watsapp.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of article is that, it covers the different phases and
contribution of Jan Koum in developing the app, the idea of which came from building a
medium of sending notifications to his friends. The development of this app has brought a
revolution in the field of messaging, as before the development of the app, people never
thought of having a sms based medium for freely communicating with the near ones. Millions
of people use Watsapp, as it is simple and easy to use along with a standard protection by a
method of encryption.
Watsapp came into existence in the year 2009 and gained instant popularity. Facebook later
bought Watsapp in the year 2015 as it was gaining instant popularity among masses. I found
this article useful as it provided a detai8led discussion of the story behind the development of
this popular mobile app. Another major reason for the increasing popularity of this app is that,
its interface has no unwanted advertisements and solely focuses on delivering the best
services to its users. Therefore, Jan koum have definitely brought a revolution in the
landscape of mobile applications.
Week 10
While information systems and technology deliver many benefits to society, they can also
result in (sometimes inadvertent) negative effects and outcomes. Find and summarise a
resource that describes ONE example of where the use of an information system or
technology has led to negative consequences for humans.
Title: ERP Failure: Hershey
Reference: Pemeco.com. (2017). A Case Study on Hershey's ERP Implementation Failure–
Driving successful enterprise software projects. [online] Available at:
https://www.pemeco.com/a-case-study-on-hersheys-erp-implementation-failure-the-
importance-of-testing-and-scheduling/ [Accessed 18 Sep. 2017].
URL: https://www.pemeco.com/a-case-study-on-hersheys-erp-implementation-
failure-the-importance-of-testing-and-scheduling/
Summary:
The article discusses the negative effects of technology and its effect on an organization. I
chose this article as it effectively explains the cause and effects of the failure of ERP

implementation of Hershey. The improper implementation of the Enterprise resource planning
system of Hershey resulted in the loss of 19% of the quarterly profits of the organisation
coupled with a decline in stock price by 8 percent. I chose this article as it discusses the
cause of the improper ERP implementation and its aftermath that the company and its
employee had to face. The faulty ERP system was incapable of handling the load of large
amount of Christmas order, resulting in bringing the whole supply chain to a hault. The
company was not able to fulfil its orders due to the fault system earning a huge loss.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this article is that it clearly elaborates the need and
importance of following every phases of a software development life cycle. The company did
not follow the proper testing procedures while developing the software and therefore, the
whole system failed to perform in the most crucial time of business. The company failed to
fulfil the orders of almost $100 earning a huge reputational risk and huge loss.
I found this resource useful as it gave a detailed insight of the negative effect of information
system on human if it fails to perform. Therefore, in order to prevent such adverse results,
proper implementation of software and its maintenance is needed to be ascertained.

MARKING SHEET - DO NOT DELETE
Criteria
<=3 Excellent resource selection; resource is highly relevant to the task (the
resource is probably highly specialised); summary is detailed yet concise;
the relevance and usefulness of the resource selection has been clearly
explained.
Key
Deductions -3 Reference/URL provided does not link to resource (and resource cannot
be located or determined from details provided) OR
Reference/URL provided does not relate to the summary (i.e. summary is
not of resource content / contains content not contained in the resource)
Week Marks Awarded
1
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8
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10
TOTAL
Comments: