User:Ashiu33/sandbox

Teaching Ethical Hacking:

In this digital age and our reliance on technology, hackers are able to gather more information on us then before. One way to combat this, however, is to teach students to hack with the hopes that they become white hat hackers. White hat hackers have the ability to to prevent malicious attacks and follow ethical guidelines. The movement of ethical hacking has gained traction through different programs such as the L0pht and GhettoHackers and courses have become integrated into university and college level curriculum.

Prevent the Development of Black Hat Hackers:

Security researcher and an application security engineer, Joe Gervais, pointed out that students who are intellectually curious enough may start to experiment with computers without thinking of the ethical repercussions of their actions. He points out that there are a lot of classes that exist for more gifted students in areas such as math, reading, etc. However, there doesn’t seem to be courses that can address the curiosity that a young hacker may have.

Hacking courses can create a moral compass for young hackers. They require a constructive environment that allows them to satiate their desire to understand computers. Students in these classes have the ability to learn what they are passionate about while also understanding the ethical boundaries that should not be encroached upon. However, the integral part of the curriculum would be to prevent the development of black hat hackers.

Creating the Next Generation of White Hack Hackers:

There seems to be a lack of skilled cyber security experts. However, there doesn’t seem to be curriculums that teaches individuals the skills required to protect security systems from malicious attacks. Teaching hacking is a plausible way to fill the gap in the supply and the demand of hackers who are capable of implementing defensive measures against attacks. Ymir Vigfusson, professor at the School of Computer Science at Reykjavik University and assistant professor in Emory University’s Math and Science Department, is a major advocate for educating students about hacking. Ymir points out that teaching hacking can be a way for students to better understand the computer security. He believes that hackers have a unique mindset where they are constantly thinking about how they can get through cyber security. However, defenders, or the ones providing the cyber security are only thinking of ways to keep people out. Defenders are concerned with thinking about how to keep people out. However, what ethical hackers can contribute is how to break in. This mindset allows defenders to realize weak points in security systems and to reinforce those shortfalls. In 2012, Ymir held a TedTalk in Rekjavijk titled "Why I Teach People to Hack" that further illustrates reasons supporting the teaching of hacking.~~~~

Sources:

https://www.tripwire.com/state-of-security/security-data-protection/cyber-security/hacker-high-why-we-need-to-teach-hacking-in-schools/

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/07/teaching_students_hacking/

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Yik Yak Article Evaluation:

The most obvious thing that I noticed when I went over the Yik Yak article is that their the source for the second citation does dot support the claim that "It is similar to other anonymous sharing apps such as Nearby, but differs from others such as Whisper in that it is intended for sharing primarily with those in proximity to the user." This seems to be an opinion that the author has and opinions on Wikipedia should be avoided in general. However, other than that one citing error, all the other citations come from reliable sources like the the Chicago Tribune and USA Today. One thing that I did notice, however, was that the article is written in a neutral way. There were no statements that showed a strong opinion about the credit of Yik Yak and the article does a good job in pointing out the positives and the negatives of Yik Yak, then negatives being cyber-bullying that is protected by anonymity. One way that Yik Yak is portrayed that differs from how we view social media in class is that it is an application that values privacy. Unlike Facebook, Instagram where users share their lives publicly, users of Yik Yak are able to share their thoughts in a safe environment. There are arguments that Yik Tak can actually aid in suicide prevention since it provides the individual with an outlet. These positive aspects of social media are relatively underrepresented during our class discussions. On the talk page, the modifier actually notices that there are some points in the article that shows strong opinion. They also point out that this was a single-use account and deactivated after this post. This, however, does not greatly effect my stance that this piece was pretty objective as it fairly points out the pros and cons of this app. I believe that, based on the wikipedia grading scheme, this article would receive around a B. There were no glaring issues, followed the most of the Wikipedia guidelines taught in the training modules, and was overall pretty useful to the reader. However, the discussion of Yik Yak was not comprehensive, and it only had two main areas of discussion: Features and Controversies. Also, it seems odd that none of the events that are mentioned takes place after 2015 which suggests that it isn't a very edited nor viewed page.

Silk Road Evaluations:

It is interesting to see anonymity play two very different roles in Yik Yak and the Silk Road. Anonymity in Yik Yak is used as a tool to generate comfort and safety, while it is used in the Silk Road for potentially malicious and dangerous reasons. The article itself was neutral, as It explained the history behind the name, its operations and how transactions were used with bitcoins and hedging to ensure that bitcoin values were to remain constant. Many of the sources were from credible sources like the New York Times and The Daily Telegraph, and were drawn from information directly from the trial of Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the silk road. These sources tended to stay objective and drew upon evidence and testimonies from the trial itself. One thing that I feel like the article could potentially improve upon is the fact that they only briefly mentions that Ulbricht could have been framed. Ulbricht admitted to creating the Silk Road but transferred control to Mark Karpeles. This could make the article biased since we are not given any evidence, if there were any, that this was actually true. Instead, it puts all of the blame on Ulbricht. This view that Ulbricht was setup as the fall guy is underrepresented in this article. The talk page consists of fixing technical errors that occurred, such as the revenues, his delayed sentencing, and how there have been successors to the silk road, mainly new versions of it like silk road 2 and 3. I would rate this article a B to a C again since everything was properly cited from credible sources, and relatively informative. However, they do lack the important part that Ulbricht may have been framed.

Gab:

I though it would be interesting to look at Gab since I also wanted to investigate the liberal environment of facebook. Gab is an social media application that allows one to speak freely, which is mainly targeted towards those who are further right. Apparently, the oppression of conservatives in facebook has inspired individuals to create their own network to share their views without feeling targeted by others. I've always believed that it is important to look at both sides of any argument and looking at Gab, it will be interesting to see how conservatives interact with facebook. I want to add more about Gab's features and see if it anonymous or not, look into how facebook is more liberal and how Gab is used and any other controversies there has been with Gab. It is also interesting to note that Gab has become a haven for those who have been kicked off of other social media sites such as Milo Yiannpoulos, Richard Spencer, and more. Other places to look at would be overall reception of the idea, and examining whether it truly is meant as a place for free speech or just a platform for far right ideals.

Possible Sources:

http://fortune.com/2016/05/24/facebook-bias/

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/24/us/politics/facebook-ads-politics.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/liberal-moderate-or-conservative-see-what-facebook-thinks-of-you/

Hacker Ethics:

I am interested in expanding on the article of hacker ethics. I was inspired to further research this topic due to my CS 171 teacher, ymir Vigfusson who teaches hacking in his advanced courses. He also has a Ted Talk on the topic of why he chooses hacking. With the ruse of the internet and the rapid expansion of the internet of things(IoT), everyone is now more connected and more reliant on technology. As we lean more on this technological crutch, the harder the fall when it gets kicked out from under us. As a result, white hat hackers work to prevent this by playing the role of the hacker and finding flaws in security systems to prevent hostile attacks from succeeding in the future. This is a new field that perfectly combines technology and ethics and the page is not very well fleshed out and I hoe to further elaborate on this topic on wikipedia.

Hands-On Imperative

Many of the principles and tenets of hacker ethic contribute to a common goal: the Hands-On Imperative. As Levy described in Chapter 2, "Hackers believe that essential lessons can be learned about the systems—about the world—from taking things apart, seeing how they work, and using this knowledge to create new and more interesting things."

Employing the Hands-On Imperative requires free access, open information, and the sharing of knowledge. To a true hacker, if the Hands-On Imperative is restricted, then the ends justify the means to make it unrestricted so that improvements can be made. When these principles are not present, hackers tend to work around them. For example, when the computers at MIT were protected either by physical locks or login programs, the hackers there systematically worked around them in order to have access to the machines. Hackers assumed a "willful blindness" in the pursuit of perfection.

This behavior was not malicious in nature: the MIT hackers did not seek to harm the systems or their users. This deeply contrasts with the modern, media-encouraged image of hackers who crack secure systems in order to steal information or complete an act of cyber-vandalism.