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--- 325:questions:week_13_questions_comments-325_17 [2017/04/20 03:12] – 76.78.226.89
+++ 325:questions:week_13_questions_comments-325_17 [2017/04/20 13:09] (current) – [“A Global Graveyard”] lmccuist
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 Never had I realized the semiotic “meaning” of computer viruses for the earlier generations; “the coded anarchist history of the youth hacker subculture; the militaristic environments of search-and-destroy warfare” (Ross 328). Since young people are generally more comfortable with computer technology, they know how to control it better and inherently how to abuse it to their advantage. This intimidates the older generations, who are characteristically used to having the benefit of knowing more. For the first time in the 80’s and 90’s a “teenage” culture arrives between childhood and adulthood, and digital technology gives these young adolescents freer rein to express themselves and do as they please. Therefore, the replacement of virtue and morals with innovation and trickery led to the creation of a special “category of crime” for “crimes with computers” and “extraordinary sentences” as punishment (Ross 330). The older and ‘wiser’ generation seeks to ultimately assert themselves with the law, in a way that cannot contain the digital revolution in their midst.  --- //[[htaylor2@umw.edu|Taylor Heather L.]] 2017/04/19 21:31//
+The idea of the hacker scene always brings to mind early 80's to late 90's punk style teenagers with tattered clothes, trench coats, grunge style hair and band t shirts riding around on skate boards and using phone booths to hack into secure business websites. While this is a highly romanticized version of hacker culture, it did have some credence to it. With the introduction of computers, it opened up and entirely new social dynamic for people, especially younger crowds. Teens and adults could experiment with computers and do so many things. Naturally this led to more illicit uses, but it was not the intention for many. For some teens, hacking was a challenge, a test to see if you could beat the security of some 40 something salary man who, "didn't get it". The teenage computer movement was born of the result of the Gen X attitude towards authority and rules. It was a systematic strike at perceived oppression at the hands of adults who had lost touch of what it was like to be a kid, especially a kid in a generation that was rapidly developing technology faster than previously.
+Thomas Lanier
+The chapter by Andrew Ross on the concept of computer hacking has evolved over the years was pretty fascinating to read because he does good job at connecting the AIDs epidemic and a computer virus. In both scenarios, the virus has to latch onto a host and replulicate itself until it is fully in the system "so to speak". Similar to the AIDS virus, society doesn’t really understand the process of how a computer virus can infect a computer within seconds or minutes. Ross says that as people received more information of how computers getting hacked, they have become more cautious on how to protect their computers from hackers. He makes the argument that  ““Media commentary on the virus scare has not run so much tongue-in cheek as hand-in-glove with the rhetoric of AIDS hysteria the common use of terms like killer virus and epidemic” (325). Even with all the resources that people have to protect their devices, hackers still find a way to take over the system and doing their own personal damage. One retired computer hacker even argued in the article that Hackers are normal people who are just deeply interested in the ways a computer system can work and how they can independently influence major changes in how the program can perform for users, whether It be good or horribly bad.- Rachel Kosmacki
+This article discusses the link between science and technology. Viruses on a computer were often compared to viruses that affect human immune systems. These included the widespread AIDS epidemic, cholera, and other biological diseases. This comparison was used throughout different forms of media including the Saturday Night Live skit Ross quotes, "Remember, when you connect with another computer, you're connecting to every computer that computer has ever connected to." (Pg 326). The warnings about computer viruses were meant to take on a humorous approach in this example, but they resonated with the American people. The panic of hackers and their abilities set in, something that the industry benefited from. -Nicole Spreeman
+I found Ross’s article interesting because in a lot of ways the way that the term “hack” is used in modern day mainstream culture has changed since he wrote this article in the 1990s. These days, “hacks” exist everywhere. Scroll through your Facebook feed and you’ll find videos of all kinds of “life hacks”: food hacks, college hacks, even relationship hacks. I looked up “hack” on Urban Dictionary (I know, I know, a no-no). The first two definitions were related to computer hacking, but the third was this, “3. To jury-rig or improvise something inelegant but effective, usually as a temporary solution to a problem.” “Hacking,” Ross says, “must then be designated as a strictly amateur practice” (335).  Page 330 reads, “the term hacker has lost some of its semantic link with the journalistic hack, suggesting a professional toiler who uses unorthodox methods. So too its increasingly criminal connotation today has displaced the more innocuous, amateur mischief-cum-media-star role reserved for hackers until a few years ago”. I would have to somewhat disagree with this, considering the way that we use the word “hack” today. Sure, I don’t want my computer hacked in the “real” sense of the word. But I feel that with such widespread use of the Internet, there exists less of a paranoia of getting hacked and we now reserve that paranoia for people who hack our credit cards and bank accounts. I think the reason that the term “hacking” has changed so much is because as information has become so accessible to all people through technology, everyone is now a hacker of sorts. Obviously there still exists those people who participate in the type of cyber-hacking counterculture and activities that Ross discusses. But with such a dual definition of the term “hack”, one more humorous that suggests ease of an activity, one can’t deny that the definition Ross unpacks isn’t quite as precise.  --Anna Collins
 ====== “A Global Graveyard” ======
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 In the United States, we have such a throw it away mentality that we don’t seem to find so much importance in what we call scraps as others do. This slideshow from The New York Times has 16 photos of people living in Ghana looking through trash for valuables left behind in a “Global Graveyard for Dead Computers in Ghana”. Boys at young ages have to go to these dumps to scavenge through everything to try and find valuables. These photos on each slide give such us a small glimpse into what is their everyday job. Something we would never see here in the US. One of the photos is of an 11-year-old girl, it is so striking seeing her with a bowl on her head (often [to] carry ice to put out fires) wearing a white dress, flip flops, a blue wrap on her head, and a pink belt. The flip-flops against the ground are so strange to see. We would expect to see someone wearing protective shoes in an area with glass and smoke and trash all over but she doesn’t have that luxury. All of these photos are very important and bring light to the situation we have where when we are done with technology it ends up in these kinds of places. -Megan Liberty
+In my Small Group Communication course, we talked about the digital divide and how pervasive it is. One of the reasons for the digital divide is the fact that tech companies are ultimately in competition with one another to make money. However, in certain areas of the world, there simply is no market for the technology because consumers cannot afford the technology or have not been taught how to use it. Because of this, these companies never bring their products to market in these areas because they won't sell. Unfortunately, this perpetuates the digital divide. Despite there being a positive correlation between access to technology and income, this photojournalism piece is reflective of the fact that if a group of people do not know how to apply technology, then it is of no use to them. The irony is that the technological donations are intended to reduce the digital divide, as the piece mentions on slide 5. However, instead of being able to use the technology to improve their lives, the Ghanaians in the piece are depicted foraging through the technological waste for individual components to sell. -Yousef Nasser
+When looking through the photos its rather clear that this group of people see this technology as something that can be sold for the scrap metal in order to get the needs they really need like food and water. You can't eat a computer, nor have these people grown up in an environment that fosters use of computers in advances in technology. It's sort of ironic that they can give people this hazardous waste simply by calling it a gift rather than waste, but they are using this gift to improve their lives just not in the way the donors intended. - Laura B. Downs
+One image that really struck me was the photo with the burning computer with the caption explaining that this the burning of technology is often done so its metals can be sold for profit. To me, this showed the differences between the wealthiest countries and the poorest ones. In wealthy nations, access to information via computers and the internet is vital. One can't really operate from day-to-day without it - and their life wold be incredibly difficult (by their standards). However, poor countries don't have the ability to use the technology for information purposes but instead are forced to use the physical materials to help provide incomes, despite the negative consequences for the environment. This lack of information will keep allowing the wealthy countries to pull increasing farther ahead of the poorer countries. - Helen Salita
+My Intro to Digital Studies class has gone over the wasting of toxic electronics, so it was not surprising to see the Times article, but it was no less upsetting. The inability to recycle hazardous material by throw-away societies affects the whole world, specifically regions where wealthier countries care less. Giving toxic materials (not worth any more than what their parts can be sold for) as gifts to groups of people in these regions is a shameless means of disposal. Mining materials to build these machines affect countries in Africa horribly, as well. The whole process of producing electronics has become a global crisis that literally poisons parts of the world that the producers seem to have no real regard for. While we've accepted the use of electronics as an essential part of our lives, we deliberately ignore 90% of our devices' history and production.  --- //[[lmccuist@umw.edu|Lindsey McCuistion]] 2017/04/20 08:09//