Hiketracks

Hivetracks is a web application linked to a database that helps beekeepers keep track of their yards. When a beekeeper goes out to their yard, they can enter information such as the status of the hive and the weather into the website and store it for later use.

To further our ethics discussion, we focused on any ethic concerns this may have. A few stuck out to me as things I might be concerned about if I were a user of this site:

1) Hivetracks has a google maps option that can give images of your yard. First, someone could see the layout of your yard and steal your layout because it may work better than theirs. Your layout is your intellectual property. Second, the layout of the yard is highly visible, meaning if someone wanted to steal a hive they would already have a plan for how they would do it. Also, if your hive was in your backyard they would now be able to see where your house was in proximity to the yard to avoid being caught.

2) What kind of database security is in play? Some people may have opted to have their information not shown and would prefer if someone could not get it from the database freely. If someone were to gain access to the database, through various methods, they could have access to potentially sensitive information.

3) Who does the code and subsequently the data collected belong to? It would be the USDA, Appalachian state, the university of Maryland or the person who actually wrote the code. Over the course of the operation many people have written code or contributed data to the project. Do they all know that they are forfeiting ownership of anything they submit to another entity?

Today I learned that a lot more goes into beekeeping than I ever thought about. You have to make sure they are somewhere that they can get the right food, make sure they have a queen, and try to keep them alive during the winter. Not to mention recording everything you do to the hive and it's condition so you can monitor changes and remember what you are supposed to be doing to the hive on your next visit.