Writing as Conversation

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Writing as Conversation

Based on the introduction to They Say, I Say

Discussion

What do you think of the idea that writing is part of a conversation?

For example, how consistent is it with your past experience writing? Does it intuitively seem like it works as a way of thinking about what you’re doing when you write?

Fitting a piece of writing into a larger conversation defines a purpose for that writing, and can help you organize and structure what you need to say. It can also help you get started with the writing. Overall, it provides context for writing.

But be careful presenting “they say” vs “I say,” it has to be clear what is your summary of other people’s ideas, and what is the new part of the conversation you’re providing.

Also be careful to take a clear position. While the “I both agree and disagree” template in They Say, I Say is sometimes useful, be careful that it doesn’t become agreeing with everyone.

Practice

Let’s talk a little about your experiences with or knowledge of cryptography and cryptanalysis. For example…

• Have you ever used a secret code (i.e., practiced cryptography)? For what?
  • (No-one commented on this)
• Have you ever broken someone else’s secret code (i.e., practiced cryptanalysis)? How? Why?
  • (No-one commented on this)
• How securely do you think secret codes protect secrets? Is it possible to have an unbreakable code?
  • Modern cryptosystems (“cryptosystem” being the technical term for a secret code or group of similar codes) are for practical purposes unbreakable.
• Is it ethical to keep secrets by encrypting them? Is it ethical to expose secrets by decrypting them?
  • The answer seems to vary case by case.
  • For instance, most people in the room thought it was ethical for Edward Snowden to expose NSA misdeeds by giving secret files to journalists. Breaking a code for a criminal investigation also seemed ethical to most people.
  • But there’s another side to the Snowden example: people in national security might consider what he did unethical because it jeopardized the security of the United States, and broke the law. (There’s an entire branch of philosophy you can study if you wish that deals with ways to resolve conflicting points of view on ethical questions, issues such as whether the law is necessarily ethical, etc.)
  • Another example where the ethics are debatable: Apple refuses to provide ways for law enforcement to bypass encryption on Apple devices, because such bypasses (also called “back doors”) would weaken security for everyone. Should you deliberately weaken encryption for “authorized” cryptanalysis?
  • Deepfakes (typically images or videos purporting to show some actual person in some compromising situation but in fact created from a combination of innocuous images and artificially generated ones) are another problematic aspect of modern computing, although one that typically only involves cryptography incidentally.
  • Cryptocurrency uses encryption to protect payments and make them untraceable, which makes it popular for criminal payments.
  • Can cryptocurrencies be ethically acceptable if there’s no tangible product backing them up and defining their value? On the one hand, this is what happens with most things, i.e., their price is determined by supply and demand, not intrinsic value. But on the other hand, cryptocurrencies seem particularly divorced from any concrete existence, which may make assigning them a value particularly ludicrous. And what stops the makers of cryptocurrencies from deciding some day to generate lots more and flood the market?
• In general, who do you think uses cryptography these days? For what? Have either of those answers changed through history?
  • Everyone uses cryptography these days, e.g., in secure web browsers, VPNs (VPN = “virtual private network”), etc.

Warm-Up Essay

The first writing exercise is a (hopefully) short one in which I want you to continue this conversation, i.e., pick some idea (just one) raised in the conversation and expand on it, challenge it, give new arguments in support of it, etc., according to what you believe about that idea.

See the handout for more details.

This essay also practices another important part of the writing process, namely revision. This works through multiple deadline dates, namely…

• Next Wednesday (our next class meeting) we will do “peer reviews” or “peer editing” of drafts, i.e., sharing drafts with another student for feedback. We’ll meet via Zoom for this. See below and Canvas announcements for the link.
• Following the reviews, next Wednesday through Friday, I want to meet with each of you individually, for 20 minutes, to talk about my thoughts on the draft and your goals for the final essay. The easiest way to set these up is through Google calendar, which I’ll demonstrate briefly during Wednesday’s class.
• The finished essay is due at midnight between September 15 and 16; between the 16th and 20th I want to meet with you again to discuss my thoughts (and yours) on the finished work.
• For now, both individual meetings will also be through Zoom or similar.

Next

Peer editing of warm-up essay drafts.

Meet via Zoom

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