Hackers Good or Evil
Imagine this, you are driving along the road and suddenly you see something spectacular. Now imagine that you are not allowed to deviate from your course to check it out. This is what a so-called “hacker” faces. Just imagine that you saw an injured person on the side of the road. In this analogy you are not allowed to help the injured person. A hacker is not allowed to explore like everyone else in the world. A hacker is not allowed to help fix potential security holes. The term hacker can have many meanings. The most visible to the public is the person pirating software, and breaking into corporate networks and destroying information. This is the public misconception of a hacker. Back in the Unix days, a hack was simply a quick and dirty way of doing something. Hackers in those days were basically just computer experts. Nowadays hacker means the same thing as a cracker, a person who pirates software, and malicious hackers. The media, of course, never prints the good things hackers do. Most hackers provide a service to companies, by letting the company know about security holes, before a rival exploits it. Most hackers want nothing more than to simply learn. A hacker has an extreme thirst for knowledge, but not in the traditional subjects. Technology, and anything new interest hackers. In fact most security experts start out but learning and “hacking”. The bad view of hackers is not completely false. There are hackers out there that will do there best to harm any system hey can, but most want nothing more than to find the beauty in system, or network. To hackers vast networks, and the inside of a firewall that was meant to keep them out, are the most beautiful sights on Earth.
In every aspect of life there are people who exploit others. Murders, robbers, or any other criminals come from every walk of life. Even hackers have some, but like the general population, it is a small percentage. Most people would call the whole Linux community hackers, because anyone who has the knowledge to run Unix must be a hacker. This show what good hackers can do. The entire Unix GNU community is run by hackers. They all contribute toward a free operating system. They all work out the bugs, and then distribute it for free. Hackers got tired of paying for an OS that did not work well.
In reality, most hackers are ordinary people with a great deal of curiosity, above-average skills with a computer, a good understanding of human nature, and plenty of time to kill. Hackers have no distinguishing characteristics. Your next-door neighbor could be a hacker, as could your niece or nephew, one of your co-workers, or even the kid who serves you coffee in the morning. Not all hackers are dangerous and out to destroy business or damage lives. The view of the general public toward hackers is mixed. A recent CNN-poll shows 33% of respondents labeling hackers as "useful," 17% seeing them "as a menace," and the majority (45%) seeing hackers as "both" useful and a menace (CNN, 1999).
Media is a wide term that covers many information sources including, television, movies, advertisement, books, magazines, and the internet. It is from this wide variety of information that women receive cues about how they should look. The accepted body shape and has been an issue affecting the population probably since the invention of mirrors but the invention of mass media spread it even further. Advertisements have been a particularly potent media influence on women’s body image, which is the subjective idea of one's own physical appearance established by observation and by noting the reactions of others. In the case of media, it acts as a super peer that reflects the ideals of a whole society. Think of all the corsets, girdles, cosmetics, hair straighteners, hair curlers, weight gain pills, and diet pills that have been marketed over the years. The attack on the female form is a marketing technique for certain industries. According to Sharlene Nag...
"Immigration restriction produced the illegal alien as a new legal and political subject, whose inclusion within the nation was simultaneously a social reality and a legal impossibility - a subject barred from citizenship and without rights. Moreover, the need of state authorities to identify and distinguish between citizens, lawfully resident immigrants, and illegal aliens posed enforcement, political, and constitutional problems for the modern state. The illegal alien is thus an 'impossible subject,' a person who cannot be and a problem that cannot be solved." (Ngai 4-5)
... way media portrays the female body, we could help women to become media literate so they can recognize those images and not really and have been manipulated. Sands said, “If women can be taught not to internalize the sociocultural ideal, they may be able to counter the negative effects of the ultra-thin images that are almost inescapable” (Sands & Wardle, 2003).
Although, hackers can damage a person psychologically, emotionally, and financially, hacking almost never leads to direct physical violence. I believe that hacking is one of those unique tools of life that is considered good or bad depending on what it is being used for. I believe that anything that falls into the right hands and is used for a genuine purpose, can help progress society in a positive light even if the thing in question is deemed bad. For instance, in June of 2013, Edward Snowden, an American computer professional, leaked classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) to the mainstream media in Hong Kong by using the helpfulness social engineering approach, which help him obtain confidential information without physically taken it from the person. Although this was detrimental for the US government’s reputation, simultaneously it was an event that lead to the improvement of security. In addition, if the US had hired Edward Snowden that could use his wrong doing for a right cause. We all have our thoughts about what is wrong and right, but in reality those who are in power of wealth determine what is deemed acceptable and unacceptable. With this in mind, I state the claim that from a creativity aspect no matter whether a product is deemed good or bad,
When one hears the word “psychopath”, they probably picture someone in an insane asylum locked away with crazy hair and ripped clothes. However, this is simply not always the case. Sometimes the true psychopath is the person one would least expect because he or she seems rational, stable and possibly even fairly caring. A true psychopath is defined as someone who “displays a number of behavioural traits which range from being cunning and devious to manipulative and charming” (Guy pars 3). Psychopaths are not always easily pointed out in a group of people until close examination of their behavior, past history, and neurological reactions to certain situations. One may not immediately identify someone with a psychopathic personality. It takes
Kasey Serdar (2005) argues that only a small number of women can actually fulfill the characteristics of what media defines beautiful. Yet, women are constantly being exposed to the ideal women image. Serdar (2005) illustrates that “models shown on television, advertisement, and in other forms of popular media are approximately 20% below ideal body weight, thus meeting the dia...
Many people through out the world use the internet in way you can’t imagine. Hacktivism being a virtual way to make a statement for the world to see is only the beginning. A recent demonstration of hacktivism followed the death of a Chinese airman when his jet fighter collided with a U.S. surveillance plane in April 2001. Chinese and American hacktivist from both countries hacked Web sites and used them as "blackboards" for their statements. This is only an example of what hacktivist are capable of. This in my opinion is not ethical. I do understand they are making a point but the way to make the point is all wrong.
Approximately 30,000 children in the United States have received cochlear implants since the 1990’s (Young, 2012) and this number will only continue to increase. However, nationwide surveys have consistently shown for decades that deaf students graduate with sub-par literacy skills and most read at the fourth grade level or even below (Bollag, 2006). Despite man...
Hacking has two primary definitions; the first refers to the enthusiastic and skilful use of computers to solve problems (Techterms, 2013); the second, to “gain unauthorized access to data in a system or computer” (Oxford Dictionaries, 2013). In the context of this essay the second definition is more appropriate and will be the meaning inferred throughout. This definition also more closely aligns with legal terminology used in the UK when describing the hacking of computers. The Computer Misuse Act (1990) introduced three criminal offenses:
1. Psychopathy personality is a mental disorder in which individuals are often violent or dangerous, but they do not display this behavior up front, as they have the capacity to use their superficial charm. The term sociopath comes at play whenever these killers have caused harm to a higher number of individuals in society. Psychopaths are pathological liars, manipulative, have a sense of grandiosity, vanity, selfishness, impulsivity, lack remorse, and guilt. Therefore, they are callous, have a shallow affect, and cannot feel the emotions of others. For the most
“The mass media serves as a mediating structure between individuals and their bodies by sending a powerful message to society: only a determined physical stereotype of beauty is valued” (Sepúlveda & Calado, 2012). Women develop a sense that they are not beautiful unless they look like the women in the photographs that are being advertised, thus causing a large impact on their health putting them at risk to develop physiologic issues possibly leading to eating disorders as discussed in the information presented above. This correlation does not affect women here and there; across the United States women are being impacted by the advertisements perused by the beauty industry because of the popularity of mass media in the current
Alexandra Scaturchio, in her article “Women in Media” (2008) describes the media’s idea of beauty as superficial. She supports her argument by placing two pictures side-by-side; a picture of a real, normal-looking woman and her picture after it has been severely digitally enhanced. Her purpose is to show young teenage girls that the models they envy for their looks are not real people, but computer designs. She also states, “the media truly distorts the truth and instills in women this false hope because…they will live their lives never truly attaining this ideal appearance”. Scaturchio wants her readers to realize the media’s distorting capabilities and feel beautiful about themselves, even with flaws.
The issue with tackling the ethical hacker scenario is that the event is almost entirely action based. There is no end to give meaning to the action and there is no finalized result or indication that it impacted happiness, which many ethical theories depend on. Namely consequentialism, utilitarianism and ethical egotism require an end result in one form or another. There is also no purpose in committing the hackings which makes applying moral theories that deal with motivation and intent, ethical egotism and aspects of virtue ethics, increasingly more difficult to do effectively. Therefore moral theories that apply almost exclusively to the action itself will be utilized in this argument.
Hackers are typically defined as individuals that gain unauthorized access to another person’s computer. Although that definition is rather specific it can be broadened to include other illegal activities such as “phishing”, which can be done on its own and may be separate from hacking. The hacker community is what is contended to be an “imagined community” meaning they occupy no singular geographic location, like members of a community like Rosedale, nor have they have any set guidelines for becoming a computer hacker. The hacker community is highly fluid, with members leaving and others taking their places all the time. Most hackers tend to either form close connections with just a few other community members or formalize groups and break off into subsets. Although the hacker community is criminogenic by virtue of being rallied around an illegal activity there is very little discourse about them threatening society, and when there is, it is often not highly regarded. This process becomes even more apparent when looking at the moral panic that surrounds young, black men. Racism is certainly a factor here as popular belief is that majority of the hacker community are young, white males but that does not go far enough in explaining the disparity. Either does simply arguing that hackers pose no real threat. A recent example is that of a hacker that gained control of the life support system of an Antarctic research facility which housed 56 scientists. Although the hacker was cut off before any damage could be done, it is easy to see how that scenario could have ended in tragedy. Furthermore, hackers have gained access to high level American government agencies, like the Pentagon, before so it is easy to see why this commun...