a_battles17

Artist: Andrew Battles

Work: The Hacker’s Cube

Each of the six faces of this cube depicts a topic we have discussed in class. The first face depicts Steven Levy’s Hacker Ethic and it reads thus:

Access to computers – and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works – should be unlimited and total. Always yield to the Hands-On Imperative!

All information should be free.

Mistrust authority – promote decentralization.

Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position.

You can create art and beauty on a computer.

Computers can change your life for the better.

Understanding the hacker ethic is integral to learning in this class. All hackers should follow this manifesto and be scorned by the community if they violate it. Hackers have gotten a bad rep because of just a few people that use their gifts to break the law. If more people in the world understood that for the most part, hacking is a good thing, the hacker community would be more accepted. This face shows what hacking is really all about.

The second face depicts how hacking has brought about ways to keep people informed and connected, while at the same time offering anonymity to those who want it. Communication and staying connected are vital to the survival of hacking and the hacking community. As long as the internet has been around, instant communication has been possible, but the recent popularity of social networks such as Facebook and Myspace has made our society connected like never before. Blogging has soared in popularity and is a way for anyone with access to a computer to share their ideas with the world. But as the world becomes increasingly connected, privacy and anonymity are becoming threatened. As suggested by IMIPACT!, “Most obviously relevant are the internet’s capability of reaching such a large amount of people in such short time and the sense of anonymity that it provides.” Services like remailers allow people to exchange information while their identities remain hidden. Privacy relates to the point of the hacker ethic that says to mistrust authority because not only are people able to hide more easily online, but also anyone can more easily track someone down online. Anonymity is a right that should not ever be compromised.

The third face depicts the unfortunate fact that not all hacking is done to benefit the world. Try as they might, members of the hacker community cannot influence everyone to do the right thing when it comes to hacking. Every hobby or skill has people that are up to no good, but it seems that criminal hackers are the most famous. People are scared of someone who can steal their money without ever confronting them. The government does not like that someone can gain access to any secrets or sensitive material from the comfort of their own home. From small, money-saving hacks such as the Steve’s blue box to the major theft and law breaking of Kevin Mitnick, criminal hacking comes in many forms. Although these forms of hacking are not legal, they are still extremely creative and may lead to the creation of defenses against future malignant hacks, exemplifying Levy’s point that art and beauty can be made on a computer. Even Kevin Mitnick turned his craft into helping companies avoid giving away secret corporate information.

The fourth face depicts how hacking has benefited the world, both technical and social. Freeware and open-source software have created a large job market since they’ve become popular. Google has countless helpful and easy-to-use programs that most of us use every day. There are people whose job it is to fix and improve software that is free and available to anyone who wants it. Open-source software is a great way for anyone to become a “hacker.” Social engineering, although it is capable of being used for malignant purposes, is a great way to hack something real. The Yes Men are famous social engineers who have brought sensitive issues that corporations wish to hide into the public eye. The way Dow Chemical dealt with the Bhopal Chemical Plant tragedy was criticized by the Yes Men and just one of their many hijinks. Furthering technology and creating art on a computer are key components of the hacker ethic.

The fifth face depicts the history of hacking and great achievements that it has brought about. When IBM was the computer powerhouse, innovation was slowed and the personal computer was not even a thought. But, many people were fascinated by computers and spent their entire lives figuring them out and trying to get the rest of the world interested in the power of these machines. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak brought computers to the people and started a booming company in 1976. Bill Gates presented the world with an operating system that was easy to use and successfully undermined IBM. Hacking has a detailed history but a short one; 33 years is not long for such amazing innovation.

The sixth face depicts what the future could hold in terms of hacking and technical feats. Will hacking be used to terrorize as suggested by Denning? She writes, “we cannot ignore the potential of cyberterror. During the past five years, terrorists and jihadists have shown a stronger interest in and capability to conduct cyber attacks, and they have successfully conducted numerous attacks against websites. Cyberterrorism, although not yet experienced, is a very real possibility” (2007). Hopefully we will be able to fight cyberterrorism with digital defenses, but every system has its vulnerabilities. Will hacking become a more accepted activity as people like Emanual Goldstein would like? With increased awareness and interest, hacking could become a major part of our children’s lives. Starting kids early on programming with programs like Scratch is a major step towards this future. There seems to be no limit to what the human mind can achieve with computers. There is no limit to human curiosity and creativity. In the next few decades, computers and hacking will be at a level no one can imagine.

At the center of the cube, another cube is suspended. This cube is composed entirely of people. It can be viewed from every side of the cube and represents that people are central to hacking and computers. If it wasn’t for human curiosity, hacking might have never arisen. As technology advances and computers become increasingly intelligent, we must never forget that people are the source of all innovation. We must never allow the human element to be removed or forgotten.

Sources:

Pictures:

http://www.usaid.gov/stories/jordan/pc_jo_computers.html

http://www.smh.com.au/news/businessinnovations/whos-the-boss/2007/10/15/1192300731336.html

http://www.paramics-online.com/product_processor.php

http://www.philebrity.com/2008/09/24/uncyclopedia-wtf/

http://www.technology-blog.com/blogs/archives/Computer-blog/April-9-2008.html

http://invest-n-trade.blogspot.com/2009/03/ibm-layoffs-job-cut-fires-600-us.html

http://www.atcb.com/documents.asp

http://www.cc.gatech.edu/cpl/projects/graphcuttextures/

http://www.pclaunches.com/computers/apple_computer_made_out_of_wood.php

 http://www.cs4fn.org/fundamentals/society.php

http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/200833/1753/Facebook-s-global-appeal-finally-puts-MySpace-to-the-sword

http://musikality.net/

http://www.elertgadget.com/pubregister.php

http://cypherpunks.faithweb.com/

http://blogs.pcworld.com/gameon/archives/006664.html

http://myoldmac.net/FAQ/TheBlueBox-1.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2893993.stm

http://www.nitemarerecords.com/index2.html

 http://www.mugshots.com/Print/Kevin+Mitnick.htm

 http://andromeda.plymouthlibrary.org/blog/libchoice/2008/03/the_yes_men.html

http://www.updatetechnology.ie/commercial/symantec.htm

 http://chattahbox.com/technology/2009/04/26/microsoft-announces-windows-7-rc1-dates-and-unveils-add-on-xp-mode-compatibility/

 http://venturebeat.com/2009/01/21/record-revenue-and-earnings-for-apple-on-huge-ipod-sales-but-iphone-sales-miss-expectations/

 http://mawia.edublogs.org/page/2/

http://ch0cl8sngrin.wordpress.com/2008/03/28/whats-next-after-vista/

 http://www.rahulbasu.com/blog/

Levy, Steven. Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. New York: Doubleday. 1984.

IMPACT!. Anonymity With Wireless Networking.

Denning, Dorothy. A View of Cyberterrorism Five Years Later. 2007.

In the game Second Life, building things is pretty simple.  I tried it out a little and here’s what happened!

Fig 1: Here is the floor for my building

Fig 2: The walls are starting to form

Fig 3: Here it is with some texturing!

Fig 4: Ahh… the finished building!  I just wanted to play around a little bit.  The tower is a water fall!  It looked pretty good at this point, but…

Fig 5: I forgot to link them, and when I turned physics on… destroyed in seconds.  I couldn’t figure out how to revert to the correct structure

If a picture is worth 1000 words, then what better way to represent themes we have discussed in class than through photos? My art project will be a cube covered in pictures. I plan the dimensions to be about 10in³ and constructed of cardboard. Each face of the cube will have a different theme. One face will have pictures that represent Levy’s Hacker Ethic. Each point of the ethic will be associated with a photograph. The next face will contain pictures that represent social networking, which has become a huge part of today’s society. Myspace, Facebook, and blogging have all come about because of one form or another of hacking. This face will also discuss web anonymity. Another face will provide examples of how hacking can be used for malignant or law-breaking purposes; people like Kevin Mitnick and devices such as Steve Job’s and Steve Wozniak’s blue box will be depicted here. In contrast, a face will show examples of hacking that has benefited the world with representations of freeware and security; social engineering will be discussed here along with some software that would be nonexistent without hacking. We learned a lot about today’s computer giants: Microsoft and Apple. A fifth face will present some of the history and feats of the original hackers. The final face of the cube will represent the future of hacking. Will it be used to terrorize as suggested by Kaplan? Will hacking become a more accepted activity as people like Emanual Goldstein would like? This face will explore some of these ideas. Taken all together, the cube should successfully represent some of the many topics we have covered in this class. I think the best way to display the photo cube will be to hang it so that all sides can be viewed without touching the sides too much.

Enjoy my game created on Scratch!

http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/swimmerandrew/480684

Scratch, developed at MIT, is quite an amazing program.  It introduces programming in a way that anybody can understand.  The best part… It’s aimed at kindergarteners!  I took computer science in high school and that was pretty difficult.  I noticed that in Scratch, the very same commands and operations were included in the interface.  My knowledge of programming helped me get a quick start to making my little cat do what I wanted it to do.  But, I feel that even if I had no programming knowledge, I would have been able to figure out Scratch very quickly.  The drag and drop method for program commands is very beneficial; you can visualize everything that your program is doing easily.

Another cool thing about Scratch is that people can share their creations online for others to critique and enjoy.  Scratch takes this a step further because you can download the program to your computer and see exactly how it works.  One program that I found, hangman, was a lot of fun: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/BoltBait/463279.  The author comments on what challenged him and how he overcame some of the errors.

Another game I played around with is called Classroom Escapee: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/bosox397/466556.  I like how this game uses the directional arrows and obstacles in the classroom.  When the author comments on his work, I can appreciate how long it took him and what he had to do to make his project work.  I want to be able to make a game that has aspects like this (the teacher turning around).

PMOG, now the Nethernet, has turned out to be a lot more fun than I initially anticipated.  Upon first playing around with it, I wondered how it could be fun and still be a Roll Playing Game.  But after I came to know how it worked and what the missions could really do for me, I started to enjoy earning datapoints and exploring the far reaches of the internet.

First, some things that are good.  The missions are an excellent way of getting people to websites and allowing them to learn things they never would have even bothered to before.  I’m glad that somebody figured out a way to get the most out of the internet.  The internet has grown so enormous, that it is easy to get into a rut, visiting the same mega-sites like facebook and yahoo every day.  It’s nice to catch a brake and see a little-known website or a program that someone has worked very hard on.  Missions are a great way to “spread the word,” like Myspace is to music.  Also, the website being a platform for social networking and communication is a good aspect of the system.  Many people can make friends that even match.com would never produce.

Like all projects, there are some aspects of the Nethernet that need some work.  For instance, I believe items like puzzle crates, which require high-level gamers to use, should be available to all users.  This would cause missions and games to have hundreds  of new possibilities.  I know I would’ve liked to incorporate puzzle crates into some of my missions, but I’m not a high enough level.  Player-to-player interaction is another aspect that needs some work.  Mines, although fun to attack people with, are very distracting when you’re trying to surf the web in peace.  The screen changes shape, you loose your concentration, and then you have to interact with about 5 different dialogue boxes.  It is a very cumbersome process that takes away from whatever you are doing.  Just a small alert should be enough to let you know you’ve tripped a mine.  Portals and DP cards are fun though.  Also, the whole aspect of different classes is kind of confusing.  It makes the game less passive, which I thought was not the point of the system.

Global Warming: two words that have caused a lot of controversy lately. There are staunch believers and adamant disbelievers, hundreds of blogs devoted to the issue, and politicians locked in a seemingly endless battle over whom is right. Regardless of who is right and who is wrong, there is nothing wrong with living more sustainably. Using less energy, using clean energy, and reducing waste are all good for the environment and human health, even if the planet isn’t warming abnormally. Homes and buildings are responsible for a large percentage of energy use in the United States. In fact, buildings consume 39% of the energy used (National Energy Education Development Project [NEED], 2009). By employing simple habits and installing more efficient products, that energy use could be reduced. This guide will describe ways to “hack” into the home and reduce its energy consumption focusing on three categories: water conservation, minimizing power use, and alternative energy sources. Not only can these measures save you money on your utility bill, but you’ll also be doing something good for the environment.

Even though the earth is 70% water, only about 4% is drinkable (U.S. Geological Survey [USGS], 2008). The water we drink comes from a fixed source, be that a lake or an aquifer, and we are essentially at the mercy of nature. The San Antonio Water System [SAWS] (2008) draws its water from the Edwards Aquifer, which supplies over 1.3 million people. Everything that can be done to make sure that water lasts forever needs to be done. Luckily, there are many ways that your home can use less water than it does now, and not all require the purchase of specialized water-saving fixtures. Most everybody knows that watering the lawn less, not letting the water run while brushing your teeth, and running the washing machine only with a full load will save water, but there are even more habits that you might not have known about. SAWS (2008) provides many tips on simple habits that can save large quantities of water, such as to “never use the toilet to dispose of cleansing tissues, cigarette butts, or other trash. This wastes a great deal of water and also places an unnecessary load on the sewage treatment plant or septic tank.” Other actions that can be done around the house include using cold water to do laundry, which saves the energy required to heat the water. Making sure water line connections don’t have leaks is also important because even a slow drip can waste up to 170 gallons of water each day (SAWS, 2008). While these water-saving habits are useful and productive, installing water-saving fixtures will conserve even more water. SAWS (2008) also provides some examples of these fixtures: faucet aerators, low-flow shower heads that reduce water use in showers to less than three gallons per minute, and toilets that only use 1.6 gallons per flush. One of the largest water users in the home is the toilet, which uses about 27% of

Is carbon dioxide evil? Does it mean the end of the world for us all? Extreme environmentalists might want you to think that way, but the reality of CO₂ is that it’s a natural molecule necessary for life on this planet; we breathe it out and plants use it to grow and make sugars, the energy source for the entire food chain. However, this doesn’t mean we can keep pumping CO₂ into the atmosphere without any fear of environmental consequences. Dr. Pieter Tans (2009) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [NOAA] shows that CO₂ levels now hover around 382 parts per million and this level has been steadily increasing over the past 5 years. What can you do? Use less energy! CO₂ is produced by making energy, (traditionally, burning coal) and as stated before, homes and building use 39% of that generated energy. Using less energy in your home can reduce your electric bill and your carbon footprint. I have always been taught to turn off the lights when I leave a room, turn off the computer when it’s not being used, keep the thermostat at 68 degrees in the winter, and many other little habits that help save energy. My parents probably taught me these things because it meant a lower electric bill, but now it also means reducing my carbon footprint.

Although these energy efficient fixtures are extremely successful at what they do, they can be seriously undercut by an energy waster that goes largely unnoticed: energy vampires. These are electronics that use energy even when they are not turned on, what is called standby power. Bongiorno (2009) asserts that “standby power can amount to 10% of residential energy use.” Energy vampires suck up energy when they’re turned off for various reasons: products that have remotes must use energy to be able to sense signals from the remote; products with clocks need electricity to run the clock; adapters, such as chargers, continue to draw power because that’s what they’re made to do, charging or not (Bongiorno 2009). Plugging electronics into power strips and turning off the power strip when the devices are not in use erases vampire power loss. Unplugging chargers when they’re not being used will also eliminate their power-sucking properties. Unfortunately, not much can be done about products with clocks or remotes because unplugging them would require resetting them every time and unresponsiveness to a remote, respectively. These hacks are some of the most basic, but they will save a great amount of energy. There are many products on the market that will use less energy than ones you now own, but generally, the more energy an appliance conserves, the more expensive it will be.

All of the energy-saving features and products I have described will cause your house to reduce its energy consumption, but it is still consuming energy. The IPCC (2005) found that “fossil fuels are the dominant form of energy utilized in the world (86%), and account for about 75% of current anthropogenic CO₂ emissions.” Every time you flip on a light switch, you are effectively consuming fossil fuels and emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Why not reduce your footprint even further, maybe even become energy independent, by generating your own power? Alternative sources of energy, such as solar power, are clean and can produce quite a bit of energy. Solar power is photovoltaic (PV), meaning the direct conversion of light into electricity (General Electric Energy [GE], 2009). Solar panels consist of sections, cells, of silicon that generate an electric current when sunlight strikes them. The energy that PV cells generate is DC power, whereas the plugs in your house use AC power. So, in order for the energy generated by solar panels to be useful in the home, it must be passed through an inverter, which converts DC power to AC power (GE, 2009). This

Concern about the environment and our effect on it is growing. “Being green” is becoming increasingly popular as tabloids, newspapers, and websites continue to promote green living. Doing any of the measures I have discussed will save you money and lessen the strain on the environment. There are many, many more steps that can be taken to make a home greener, but most of them require extensive remodeling, or even building a new house. While they are very effective, they are also expensive and time consuming. But if given the chance, do everything you can to make your house use less energy; it will be cheaper in the long run and it should make you feel good about yourself! You don’t have to be a tree-hugger to save energy. Even the smallest, simplest practices can go a long way.

References

Bongiorno, L. (2009, Feb 26). Energy Vampires: Fact versus Fiction. Message posted to http://green.yahoo.com/blog/the_conscious_consumer/50/energy-vampires-fact-versus-fiction.html;_ylt=AtUzBpEvoVSuqkXijoed7_OAV8cX

Flushmate. Conservation. In The ABCs of Toilets. Retrieved March 4, 2009, from http://www.toiletabcs.com/index.html

General Electric Energy. (2009). Residential Solar Power. In Solar Power. Retrieved from http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/products/solar/en/residential.htm

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2005, September). Chapter 2 Sources of CO2. In IPCC Special Report on Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage. Retrieved from http://www.mnp.nl/ipcc/pages_media/SRCCS-final/IPCCSpecial ReportonCarbondioxideCaptureandStorage.htm

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2005, September). Chapter 1 Introduction. In IPCC Special Report on Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage. Retrieved from http://www.mnp.nl/ipcc/pages_media/SRCCS-final/SRCCS_Chapter1.pdf

National Energy Education Development Project. (2009, March). Energy Consumption. In NEED Energy Infobooks. Retrieved from http://www.need.org/needpdf/ infobook_activities/SecInfo/ConsS.pdf

San Antonio Water System. (2008). Water Saving Tips. Retrieved from http://www. saws.org/conservation/how_you_can_help/tips.shtml

San Antonio Water System. (2008). Why Conserve?. Retrieved from http://www. saws.org/conservation/whyconserve/

Sharma, P. (2009, Feb 2). Solar Power – Sustainable Green Energy to Protect Our Economy and Environment. Message posted to http://saferenvironment.wordpress.com/ 2009/02/02/solar-power-–-sustainable-green-energy-to-protect-our-economy-and-environment/

Tans, P. (2009, Feb). Trends in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide. Retrieved from www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends

U.S. Department of Energy. (2008). Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs. Retrieved March 4, 2009, from http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=cfls.pr_cfls

U.S. Geological Survey. (2008, Nov). How much water is there on, in, and above the Earth?. Retrieved from http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/earthhowmuch.html

Figures:

Figure 1: http://www.toiletabcs.com/toilet-water-conservation.html

Figure 2: http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=cfls.pr_cfls

Figure 3: http://saferenvironment.wordpress.com/ 2009/02/02/solar-power-–-sustainable-green-energy-to-protect-our-economy-and-environment/

The Bad Ass Alliance is working on a mission that tells you how to hack your brain.  As of now, PMOG, now The Nethernet, is down and so we can’t work on the mission.  So, our websites and ideas aren’t clear yet, thus no flow chart.

But, the general idea of the mission is how to use your brain the most efficiently.  It includes things like: foods and nutrients that are good for your brain, mind games and logic puzzles that make you use your head in more than just conventional ways, and interesting facts about the brain you might not have known before.

The interactivity aspect of our mission consists of two parts.  The first part involves questions about web pages visited.  In the PMOG dialog box, a question is proposed to the explorer who must read the article to find the answer.  This happens for all of the pages.  The second aspect to our interactivity involves a place for explorers to show what they’ve learned.  The final webpage of the mission is a YouTube video where explorers can post answers to the questions.  They can use the comments section under the video to compare answers, and we can use the page to determine how our mission worked. 

So, once it’s ready, the link will be posted and you too can enjoy learning about how to hack your brain!

At first, I was a little skeptical about PMOG.  It seemed confusing and I’ll admit, I figured it was useless.  But after playing around with it for a while, I realized how exciting it was.  Nearly every website I visit has a mission to accompany it.  I have Stumble Upon for Firefox, and many of the sites I stumbled onto had a mission waiting for me.  I also like how it’s passive; I don’t have to actually do anything to earn points.  I just visit interesting websites, do my work, and discover things I never would have seen without PMOG missions.

The missions are probably the coolest aspect of PMOG.  The mines and gifts kind of make things fun, but it’s easy to forget that those things exist.  Alternatively, when 90% of the websites you visit have a mission, you don’t forget about them.  I explored a couple of missions about hackers and technology and really learned some interesting things.  I went through this interesting mission on green technology, one that led me to many hacking websites, and one about world geography!  It was fun mixing learning with exploration.

The game mechanics are relatively easy to get used to.  I did a mission where I had to find answers questions on Wikipedia; I learned plenty of fun, useless facts there such as the world’s longest city name: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.  Wow!!  The idea of one website leading to another is highly entertaining and easy to use.  You simply follow the mission by clicking ‘next,’ and you’re off!  Because the missions guide you to interesting sites, it takes little to no effort by the user to learn.  This makes missions on PMOG excellent for education and informative purposes.  The internet has unlimited potential for information and learning, and PMOG utilizes this power perfectly.  The ways websites are connected through portals, how people interact through mines and caches, and of course, the ever-pleasing missions are what make PMOG fascinating and extremely useful.  I can definitely see how we can use it to make missions pertinent to this class.

When I browsed the website before downloading the program, I figured that the program would be pretty useful and make meetings and brainstorming a little easier.  Upon downloading the program, my expectations were met and far surpassed.  I was intrigued about how similar the MindManager was to Microsoft Office programs.  It included the new feature of Office 2007, the ribbon, and looked exactly like any other Office program.  This made it a lot easier to use because I knew how to navigate the features and I could learn its awesome new features very quickly.

I played around with some of the mind mapping features and I discovered how useful the program really is.  For things like meetings, the possibilities are endless.  If I have a paper to write before the trial expires, I will probably use MindManager to get my ideas flowing.  Also, the program integrates really well into the rest of the Office programs.  You can export your maps to any of the Office Suite programs.  Upon checking my email in Outlook, I discovered that there were options in the toolbar to export items to MindManager.  I would like to know how they could seamlessly incorporate their program with Microsoft’s.  Do they have some kind of deal?

Martin Luther is one of the greatest and most influential hackers of all time. He managed to discover fallacies in the Catholic teaching and form an entirely new branch of Christianity. Hacking is not simply how Hollywood portrays it; there is more to it than nerds typing away in the basement, breaking into servers and causing trouble. Anyone who stands up to the establishment and strives to make a change in how things work is a hacker. For one man to cause people to question the Catholic Church, the most powerful institution of the time, is a feat worthy of hackers. Martin Luther strived to learn everything he could of the Bible’s teachings, discovered vast corruption in the Church’s interpretation of the Bible, and acted upon his beliefs that Catholicism was misguided, steps very similar to those that many hackers follow today.

Born into a Catholic family in Germany, Martin Luther was introduced to the teachings and beliefs of Catholicism very early on in his life. He went to college when he was seventeen and had his Master’s degree only four years later. Destined to continue his education and perhaps become a lawyer, Martin Luther’s fate changed when he decided to instead become a monk. As his previous accomplishments in school have shown, Luther was a very smart man and strived to learn as much as possible. Because he was now a monk, he could delve into the teachings of the Catholic Church and study the Bible. Luther became a Doctor of Theology in 1512. Because of the intensity of Luther’s religious courses, he studied scripture deeply and found some disparities between what he was reading and what the Church was teaching. He began developing his own theology that went more along the lines of what the Bible stated. But the more he studied, the more he realized how corrupt the Catholic teachings really were.

Luther’s actions up to this point in his life relate to a hacker’s first steps along his or her path. A yearning for knowledge and free information drives a hacker to discover things he or she would have never thought of before. They discover the system: the group or company in control of an aspect of everyone’s lives. Most often, the system is abusing its power in some way. In Martin Luther’s case, his education allowed him to study deeper and deeper into Catholic theology and the Bible, uncovering truths every step of the way. Without an education, Luther would have never made the discoveries he did. Without access to free information and the will to learn, hackers would not gain the knowledge they seek.

The Catholic Church, during Martin Luther’s life and today, claims apostolic succession. This means that the Church can trace its lineage all the way back to the Apostle Peter. Because of this apostolic succession, they believe they have supreme authority and power over all other denominations. The Catholic belief in their supreme authority allows them to convince worshipers that the doctrines and teachings of the Pope are equally infallible to those of the Bible. Martin Luther, through his studies of scripture, realized that the only authority a church needed was that of the written Word of God. In other words, if a church followed the teachings of the Bible, they had just as much authority as any other church. This discovery also led Luther to find that the Catholic Church had many false teachings. The Bible warns of false teachers and Luther was shocked to discover that the Church would not only allow, but also accept these “liars.” In the 15^th and 16^th centuries, most people were illiterate and so the teachings of the Catholic Church, many of which went against the written Word of God, were followed blindly and without question. Another huge disparity, probably the most well known, between the Bible and Catholic doctrine was the selling of indulgences. Many priests led their congregations to believe that punishment for sins could be avoided by paying the Church sums of money comparable to the degree of sin. The pope granted indulgences which saved sinners from corporal punishment after death, not their actual sins. Therefore, people kept paying the church believing that they would go to Heaven because of it. The Catholic Church made ridiculous amounts of money due to the forced ignorance of its followers. Luther knew that people were being misguided and felt that he could do something about it. He had to make people aware and thus published his 95 Theses, a list of grievances against the Catholic Church, nailing them to the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany.

Hackers display this type of action as well, though not quite as publically as Martin Luther. Going against the authority and promoting decentralization is one of the points of Steven Levy’s Hacker Ethic. Hackers, like Luther, don’t go against authority for the hell of it, instead, they resist because that authority is abusing its power usually by forcing the masses to comply with whatever it wants them to. IBM is one such example. When computers were just becoming popular, IBM essentially had a monopoly over the industry. In Pirates of the Silicon Valley, IBM was made fun of by people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. It was also the company to beat; anyone who could come up with better computers and operating systems would be celebrated by the regular people of the population. Hackers bring the power to the people and make people aware of when their rights are limited.

The moment Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg is considered the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. The 95 Theses represent Luther’s attempt to reform the Catholic Church. Unfortunately, this meant that Luther was challenging the authority of the Pope, which was not taken lightly. The Catholic Church refused to accept Martin Luther’s proposals for reform and Pope Leo X condemned Luther as a heretic in 1520. In April of 1521, after Luther refused to abandon his views at the Diet of Worms, a council of Church officials called to put Luther on trial, he was exiled. But his exile from Catholicism didn’t dampen his spirits. Luther realized that there was no hope for the Catholic Church to reform its ways and so decided to start a new branch of Christianity. The Protestant Reformation was in full swing. Not only did Luther head the Protestant reformation, but also he translated the Bible into German, the first ever German translation, so that ordinary people could understand its teachings and read them first hand. Luther believed that people should be taught what the Bible truly says and also be able to read it themselves. Martin Luther continued to write and publish his thoughts so that everyone could know what he had to say. Also, he traveled all around Europe, delivering speeches and sermons to anyone that wanted to hear him. His empowerment of average citizens caused staggering losses in Catholic attendance. People realized that they no longer had to be told what to believe.

Like Martin Luther, many hackers strive for reform. They believe information should be free to anyone who wants it, and that no one should be held captive by their ignorance. Most hackers believe this, and some take action to make things right. Again, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates decided to bring computers to the masses by designing more user-friendly computers and easier operating systems respectively. Computer giants like IBM lost customers as people flocked to computers that were tailored for the lay-person. Similarly, the Protestant Revolution caused many people to leave Catholicism in favor of a church that respected them, with a leader who wanted them to discover the Bible on their own. Martin Luther was truly a hacker in every sense of the word. In all cases such as this the system is abusing its power, and if it cannot be reformed, someone has to stop the system. Hackers are the people with the will and the know-how to accomplish such a task. Martin Luther pushed the Catholic Church, the system, to the edge and finally managed to cause enough instability to make a change. The technology of the time was simply knowledge, and the result of Luther’s exploits was an entirely new belief system based on faith alone.

References:

http://www.gotquestions.org/Protestant-Reformation.html

http://www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/martin-luther.html

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/REFORM/LUTHER.HTM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ninety-Five_Theses

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/351950/Martin-Luther

http://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/denominations/lutheranism.htm

http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/C_Transp/C11_Protestantism.html

http://www.luther.de/en/95thesen.html

We’ve all heard of the 60s.  Hippies, the Vietnam War, and Civil Rights all come to mind when thinking about the decade.  There were protests against the war and calls for peace and love all over the country.  In addition to the anti-war culture, the youth of America felt they needed to be heard and formed their own counterculture.  The counterculture “rejected the society that had put tremendous emphasis on science and technology” (1).  This counterculture feared what technology could do to the world, wondering if it would one day control everybody’s lives. 

The Vietnam War had a huge influence on the counterculture.  Young people were being drafted against their will and that angered America’s youth.  They felt the government was being oppressive and using its power to control the masses instead of serve them.  Technology had a lot to do with the war, as much of the war was broadcast straight to American living rooms.  Television made huge leaps and bounds during the 1960s and some people felt that it was shocking to see war images in their own homes.

Other advances in technology during the 1960s led to increasingly powerful computers.  The government employed this new technology to build a technical infrastructure that could crunch numbers and solve complex equations, but the potential for these machines was vast.  The counterculture was concerned about the power of the central authority and questioned if computers could ever be “good.”  “The counterculture called for the organic instead of the mechanical; small and beautiful technology, not centralized systems; spontaneity instead of order; and compassion, not efficiency” (2).  It’s not that the counterculture did not want computers, they just did not trust it in the hands of the government and the technocrats.

Hackers began to appear around this time.  They sort of combated the technocrats, trying to bring technology into the hands of the average American.  People like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak transformed mainframes and supercomputers into personal computers that anyone could figure out (3).  The counterculture supported the decentralization of this technical power.  Luckily for us now, there was the counterculture to bring computing power to America’s citizens.  Without them, the technocratic elite could still be controlled by IBM, the computer giant at the time.  Decentralization has been achieved.

1. Owram, Doug. Born at the Right Time (book)
2.Hughes, Thomas Parker. American Genesis (book)
3. We Owe It All to the Hippies (article)

            David Lightman in War Games displays many attributes of hackers, even by today’s standards and stereotypes.  Most people believe hackers to be young, nerdy boys who sit in front of their computers all day, up to no good.  Lightman certainly fits this profile and to the common observer, those characteristics are all that are needed to classify him as a hacker.  Upon closer inspection, Lightman employs some other characteristics that qualify him as a hacker to other hackers out there.  The “Hacker Ethic” according to Steven Levy points out some of these aspects that some people have never before heard of.

1.      Access to computers should be unlimited and total.  Lightman exhibits this characteristic throughout the entire film, as he is always using computers.  Whenever he is near one, he attempts to use it and find out what it can do.  He doesn’t seem to feel as strongly as Levy on this issue but he does ignore the “keep out” mentality of the government and their computer systems.

2.      All information should be free.  Being a student and a successful hacker, Lightman clearly believes in this aspect of the hacker ethic.  In researching Steven Falken, he utilized computers and information that were free to everybody.  He pushes the boundary a little bit when he changes his and Jennifer’s grades.  Then again, he’s just being a kid, exploiting loopholes that he finds and proving that he isn’t stopped by a password.

3.      Mistrust Authority – Promote Decentralization.  This aspect is not as strongly represented in Lightman’s actions as others are.  While he does circumvent a government firewall and hack into other things (like phones and airlines), he doesn’t seem to be hacking in order to promote decentralization; he’s just a kid with time on his hands, snooping around.  He was shocked to find out that the “game” he was playing with Joshua was actually real.  I think that if he were trying to teach the government a lesson, his actions would have been more of an attack than an accident.

4.      Hackers should be judged by their hacking.  Lightman’s hacker friends accept him as a quality hacker even though he’s just a teen.  I’d say his ability to hack into any system like he did would qualify him as a pretty damn good hacker.  Lightman doesn’t only use his hacking skills for pranks and for causing trouble.  When he’s locked in the examination room, he devises a way to fool the keypad and unlock the door.  When he is at the payphone, he cleverly tricks the device into thinking he’d paid.  If it weren’t foor his hacking skills, he might not have escaped and found Dr. Falken, and then the world would be over!  He also managed to hack into Dr. Falken’s mind and convince him to help them out.

5.      You can create art and beauty on a computer.  Lightman discovered art and beauty more than he created it.  Joshua, a computer that could learn and play games with a human, was a work of art.  Artificial Intelligence has been the goal of computer programmers for a long time, and to successfully mimic human logic is quite the achievement, artistically and technologically.

6.      Computers can change your life for the better.  They can also allow you to change your grades!!  This aspect of the hacker ethic is like the moral of the story.  Lightman learned how one should be careful when snooping around in places one doesn’t belong.  He also managed to teach a computer that sometimes the winning move is not to play the game at all.  The things Lightman taught the computer also taught him about himself; he should better understand the consequences of his actions. 

Computers are such an integral part of our society today that it is important for us to realize how much of what we have come to enjoy in regards to computers is because of hackers.  Hackers that follow along with Levy’s ideas of what is ethical really help us out.  While Lightman nearly caused Armageddon, he also showed that computers are not perfect; the human element is sometimes the most important part of the computer.

Works Cited:

http://www.amazon.com/Games-25th-Anniversary-Matthew-Broderick/dp/B0015NORDW/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1233115639&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Computer-Revolution-Steven-Levy/dp/0141000511/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233115681&sr=8-1

            When he decided I really didn’t understand what was going on, he would help.  Help in his case was simply doing it for me.  I would ask, “How does this segment of code work?” and he would say something like, “it just does.”  How the hell was I supposed to figure things out?  Possibly worse than his help, was the help of other students.  Sometimes when I asked the teacher a question, he would refer me to one of my classmates, most likely because he could not deal with such a “silly” question.  Unfortunately, the only students that could help at all were the ones with the teacher’s mentality, except they expressed their opinions about my question even more harshly than the teacher did.  I’ve heard, “you’re so dumb, that’s easy to fix” so many times!  It was definitely a struggle to figure out what was going on.

            One thing that the teacher and the smart-ass classmates seemed not to understand was that if they helped me, I would be able to figure out future problems by myself and not have to “bother” them with my petty questions.  That’s the problem that many people must face with the technocrats.  They almost want us to be inferior so they can think they are the best at dealing with technology.  There are some people who could care less about how a computer works and it is these people who keep the technocrats’ egos so large.  If everyone were to realize, as Ted Nelson insists, that technology isn’t something to be scared of, we would all feel less pushed around by the know-it-alls of the computer world.

            A classic example of technocratic domination is the Catholic Church around the time of Martin Luther.  In the 1400s and 1500s, most of the general population could not read or write, making understanding the bible pretty difficult.  On the other hand, the Catholic elite, such as priests and bishops, could read and they used their dominance to practically control the lives of their congregations.  The elite could tell people whatever they wanted them to believe was in the bible and unfortunately the people had no choice but to believe them.  For instance, they had the illiterate population believing that one could pay his or her way to heaven.  Talk about abuse of power.  Eventually, Martin Luther was able to wake people up and get them to defy the Catholic elite.  Maybe such a revolution will happen in the future, allowing anybody to be computer literate.