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WEEK15 Cultural relativism in IT - useless?

The question of wrong or right always depends on perspective. Whether it is an individual’s age, gender, cultural background, or profession, we all follow a somewhat different ethical code. The digital age has created a platform for everybody around the world to interact with ease, thus creating a worldwide ethical battlefield.               Originally, cultural differences where experienced during travels or conquests, often resulting in wars between kingdoms, nations, and states, thus limited, as they were confined to a certain space. However, with the increased societal mobility starting in the late nineteenth century, cultural clashes became more imbedded in daily lives and with the internet most geographical barriers were overcome. People from around the world can read Elon Musk’s provocative posts, watch the Christian ceremonies performed by the pope or read news about the war in Ukraine. Depending on each individual, their reaction is going to be different to somebody’s on the
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WEEK14 Neck-muscles from Typing - Paul Alexander

     In 1952 the six-year-old Paul Alexander becomes ill and soon is diagnosed with Polio. The chances are slim but he manages to survive, not without losing his mobility and physical freedom. Since then Alexander has been confined to the range of his “iron lung”. The iron long keeps his vital organs alive, but requires large amounts of energy and technical thus making a normal life extremely difficult. Alexander is immobilized from the neck down, however learned to use different tools with his mouth to draw, type or control other elements.      Alexander worked hard to learn to breathe without his iron lung. For the first three seconds he needed almost a year of practice, but he was tenacious and wanted to explore the yard, then the streets and after completing his studies he managed to appear in court as a lawyer for hours at end.      In 1967 Alexander succeeded in completing high school without ever attending class and went on to study law at the University of Texas (Austin). H
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WEEK13 Ubuntu and Kali

     Over the years many different operating systems have been developed on the base of Linux. Due to its moldability the individual systems are tailored to a certain user-group and thus for a certain set of tasks. Distributions vary from versions for office users to systems for super computers, the range covers all aspects of operating systems. One of the more known systems are Ubuntu and Kali. Whilst Ubuntu focuses on Linux starters, offering a clean user interface and complementary applications such as LibreOffice, media players and browsers, Kali was designed for offensive cybersecurity. It has pre-installed tools that were developed for penetration testing and ethical hacking.      Kali is being developed by only a small team; thus, they concentrate on the cybersecurity specifications and use an existing operating system as a base. In 2010 and 2011 they used Ubuntu as their base, they since have changed to Debian and kept it. Ubuntu, which was also initiated in 2004, is develope
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WEEK12 Hackerdom Ideals

 What society defines to be a hacker is a distorted version of its  original definition. While the definitions from inside the hackerdom have a rather social, goodhearted and innovative element, the non-IT society sees hackers as threats to their personal information. In his text “Hacker Ethic” the philosopher Pekka Himanen proposes seven ideals that hackers should abide. The ideals, although mentioning ethics at several points, do not define a clear limit, which I would expect to exist in a text defining the hackerdom. The ideals; passion and freedom, highlight the creativeness that should drive a hacker, which I agree with. Generally I agree that whatever one does should be pushing oneself, motivating to explore the depth of the field, however if that means violating other legal and ethical codes, that would be too much freedom. The original definition of a hacker, a passionate IT expert, does not imply an unethical use of its skills, however a hacker by the societally known defini
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WEEK11 Part 2 Privacy: What if we know what they know?

     Another disputed topic is online privacy, should we have complete privacy? It is a very complicated discussion as the counter argument is strong. Complete privacy also ensures a high degree of anonymity therefore making it more difficult for law enforcement to identify criminals or other wrong doers. However, an individual with no intentions of criminal activity will feel wrongfully treated.      The NSA and other security agencies run security checks on specific words, phrases and activities on certain websites. If the words “bomb”, “how to build a weapon” etc. are searched the user will most probably be registered by their system. In such cases I would agree that an increased interest in such topics should be monitored as they could pose a certain threat, but as somebody that studies engineering and is sometimes merely interested in knowing how things work and the science behind certain technologies, I feel uncomfortable doing research on such topics. Furthermore, investigativ
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WEEK11 Part1 Censorship: Who should censor?

       Censorship is a strongly debated topic, whilst some states used it to control the content their citizens can access, limiting their rights and freedoms, some institutions argue that their censorship protects its networks users. One example are libraries or educational institutions, especially schools censor certain websites such as gaming website, adult websites and possibly others. Some are blocked with the argument that they should not be accessed by children and for certain websites it’s the distraction that is a factor.      At our school initially YouTube was blocked which teachers very quickly recognized as a problem as our school was digitally proactive and incorporated online resources into everyday class. Multiple other websites were taken off the ban, however the school office was reluctant to remove the ban completely. Teachers and staff were provided with a separate internet connection so that they were not required to circumvent any security measures. However, whe
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WEEK 10 Secure Digital-Germany?

     When the Internet started to grow many threats started to appear and with it the need for security in the digital world. To protect its users, companies started to implement passwords, however that prompted the first generation of hackers. Who’s attempts to crack the feeble code structures that were supposed to “protect” the users created further distress. The constantly challenged systems prompted a varied development of security protocols and softwares. Whilst some passwords are meant to provide online security, others protect hardware and some softwares provide security for different digital threats such as viruses and trojans. However, the online space grows on a daily basis and is included into educational, state and everyday systems requiring increasing security measures.      Kevin Mitnick, hacker and IT-expert, defines security with three factors: technology, training and policy, depending on the digital culture of a country a different level of cyber security is present
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