X Hacking59

Jenna Gray
p.1

Another one got caught today, it's all over the papers. "Teenager Areested in Computer
Crime Scandal", "Hacker Arrested after Bank Tampering"....Damn kids. They're all
alike. But did you , in your three-piece psychology and 1950's technobrain, ever take a
look behind the eyes of the hacker? Did you ever wonder what made him tick, what
forces shaped him, what may have molded him? I am a hacker, enter my world...Mine is a
world that begins with school... I'm in junior high or high school. I've listened to
teachers expain for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I understand it "No, Ms.
Smith, I didn't show my work. I did it in my head..." Damn kid . Probably copied it.
They're all alike. I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is
cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it's because i screwed it up. Not
because it doesn't like me... Or feels threatened by me.. Or thinks I'm a smart ass... Or
doesn't like teaching and shouldn't be here... Damn kid. All he does is play games.
They're all alike. And then it happened... a door opened to a world... rushing through the
phone line like heroin through an addict's veins, an electronic pulse is sent out, a refuge
from the day-to-day incompetencies is sought... a board is found. "This is it... this is
where I belong... "I know everyone here... even if I've never met them, never talked to
them, may never hear from them again... I know you all... Damn kid. Tying up the phone
line again. They're all alike... you bet you ass we're all alike... we've been spoon-fed baby
food at school when we hungered for steak.. the bits of meat that you did let slip through
were pre-chewed and tasteless. We've been dominated by sadists, or ignored by the
apathetic. The few that had something to teach found us willing pupils, but those few
are like drops of water in the desert. This is our world now... the world of the electron
and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without
paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiterring gluttons, and you call
us criminals. We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge.. and you
call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious
bias...and you call us criminals? Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My
crime is that of judging people by what they say and think , not what they look like. My
crime is that of out smarting you, something that you will never forgive me for. I am a
hacker, and this is my manifesto. you may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all...
after all, we're all alike.

Hacking is a serious offense. And I think that I agree w/Jansie Kotze's theories and she explains a lot of the things that I was wondering about. I think that she had a lot to say, and she did it very well.

On the other hand, the boy who is supposedly in junior high has serious problems. After reading the page he had written, it concluded that I was #27,461 to read his homepage. I was shocked.......and I wondered how many little kids under 12 years old had been in there and got all sorts of ideas.....bad ideas. He had everything from viruses to download and other tips. He even had a "cookbook" that he called the infection connection.
I never thought about hacking and phreaking all too much until now. Sure, kids give ea. other little viruses for kicks, but when you can break passwords and break security grounds, that is getting out of hand. I think that it is all just a wanting to know.
He even concluded in a paragraph that he said that we could easily find out his phone # and track him down. He even put a smily face after the sentence.... Like it was a joke to be stalked. I think there are a lot of sick people in this world that aren't computer nerds. They are maniacs that have fun torturing other people, and proving they can break into any file, do anything, and nothing will stop them.
There was so much information that it was mind boggling. I didn't want to look at it, because it was really is intriguing..interesting. But I finally concluded that I was actually scared. In those chatrooms, people can send viruses just like that. Mess up your whole netscape if you open the file that they send you. Even in this particular guy's homepage, he could have planted a virus so that when you went into a particular area, a virus would download. I was cautious of where I went, but I think that they wouldn't do that. That would give them away to easily. I think that the reason why they put up a homepage, is to prove their knowledge is great.........and they are actually competing one another to be the best....and not get caught.
This guy was a kid himself..and he was mocking us all. I don't see why he needed to brag, but I guess every kid wants to be noticed. Well, in my mind, he succeeded. He is living in the future technology...and way more advanced than even I. I envy him in some ways, but then I don't. Just one slip and they catch him, bam, he's in jail. I think I'll live on the safe track and use the technology wisely and respect others that also have the same technology and knowledges as I.

WorkStudy Internship

HuxFinn
CIS497 Internship Course Project




HELPDESK INTERNSHIP SUMMARY



RESPONSIBILITIES :

The Computer User's Support Services has several divisions; Office

Automations, Networking, System Programmers, Operations, Hardware Services, Helpdesk Services, Computer Laboratories, Audio / Visual, and Switchboard. CUSS is responsible for the maintenance and development of the Purdue University Network Infra-Structure. As a division of CUSS, Helpdesk channels incoming requests for computer service from Purdue faculty and staff.

The Helpdesk Technician constantly monitors campus mail, voice mail, and answers the phone. Any and all questions or problems must be responded to with promptness and courtesy. Ideally, Helpdesk resolves the problem over the phone. When this is not possible, the technician goes on site armed with appropriate software and a toolkit to assist the user with basic repair. Any questions or problems requiring a higher lever of expertise or authority are relayed to specialists within one of the other divisions and a trouble ticket is created.

The Helpdesk maintains careful records of all correspondence with each customer. Each call is logged in 'Magic', a specialized database application. As problems are resolved, the solutions are recorded in an ever growing library of Helpdesk documentation. The objective in creating 'Tip Sheets' is to prevent the rework involved in frequently recurring problems. They facilitate prompt and efficient customer service. An extensive collection of reference manuals for all campus software is also maintained.

PROJECTS :


Nupop is a DOS-based, e-mail utility that is widely used among faculty and staff. The original developers of this software no longer support it. I took the initiative in collecting as much information as possible about Nupop so that Helpdesk could fill the gap and respond to problems.

When Banner was made available to Windows, a rash of users experienced difficulty. I responded by assisting in identifying the problem and had the satisfaction of participating in its resolution.

CUSS and ISCP sponsored the "Taste of Technology" open house this semester.
I was proud to represent Helpdesk during the activities.

Helpdesk itself is a team project. No one person can possibly answer all the questions or solve all the problems. We depend on one another as an information resource. Job activities must be coordinated to best provide quality service to our customers. The spirit of cooperation is essential.


ACCOMPLISHMENTS :

Majoring in ISCP lays a good foundation for the skills required in Helpdesk. Helpdesk builds on these skills. A typical day includes, jammed printers, login problems, stuck keyboards, obscure error messages, forgotten passwords, virus outbreaks, equipment moves, burnt out monitors, stuck keyboards, smeared printouts, and memory shortages. There are the more esoteric software questions; "What happened to my Word macros? How do I use Reachout? How can I print an attached document in mail? How can I be included in Distribution E? What happened to my Toolbar? How do I unformat a disk?"
As you can guess, an effective Helpdesk Tech requires a goodly amount of versatility and resourcefulness. As representatives of CUSS and the University, they must remain patient and agreeable. Our callers are frequently experiencing frustration and may be irritable. The phones often ring continually. Often two or three conversations are conducted simultaneously. A good tech learns to take interruptions in stride. On Helpdesk you develop not just a repertoire of hardware and software knowledge. You develop people skills.


AVERAGE WORK HOURS :

Throughout the majority of the Spring 96 semester, I worked full-time at the Helpdesk. This was a 40 hour week. The Helpdesk opens for business at 7:30 AM and closes at 4:30 PM. At that time, the phone lines are forwarded to receive voice mail around the clock; 24 hours a day and 365 days a year.


HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE :

Every effort is made to keep the Helpdesk on a parallel with current campus technology. The Helpdesk is supplied with several PCs, a DEC terminal, and a Macintosh. The technician must also become familiar with every model of printer on campus; Panasonic, Epson, Toshiba, and Hewlett Packard. There is also exposure to printer netports, scanners, LAN cards, CD ROM, and the network infrastructure.

The software includes MS Office, Excel, Powerpoint, Access, Word, Word for DOS, Lotus, FoxPro, Netscape, PC Slots, McAfee, WordPerfect, and CCMail. As the faculty uses Nupop, Banner, Labres, Reachout and SPSS; these must also be understood. Helpdesk is also experimenting with Net Remote, an application that enables remote control of any computer on the network. Windows 95 is in the introductory stages. Its release on campus is under evaluation by a committee. Netscape Version 2.01 is also being evaluated for presentation on the network.

DEDICATED TRAINING


CUSS keeps a library of professionally prepared videos for the new Helpdesk worker to view. These videos discuss the responsibilities and skills of the Support Service professional. Additionally, technicians are encouraged to attend any computer related seminars or lectures available on campus. The Helpdesk is a fast-paced environment. For this reason, the majority of training is not formalized, but is acquired on the job. Training is non-stop and extremely wide ranging. If there is a lull in the course of the day, we take the opportunity to work on documentation or brush up our knowledge by reading one of the software reference manuals. The Internet has also proven an invaluable too resource.

Wire Pirates

Wire Pirates

Someday the Internet may become an information superhighway, but right now it is more like a 19th-century railroad that
passes through the badlands of the Old West. As waves of new settlers flock to cyberspace in search for free information
or commercial opportunity, they make easy marks for sharpers who play a keyboard as deftly as Billy the Kid ever drew a
six-gun.

It is difficult even for those who ply it every day to appreciate how much the Internet depends on collegial trust and mutual
forbearance. The 30,000 interconnected computer networks and 2.5 million or more attached computers that make up the
system swap gigabytes of information based on nothing more than a digital handshake with a stranger.

Electronic impersonators can commit slander or solicit criminal acts in someone else´s name; they can even masquerade as
a trusted colleague to convince someone to reveal sensitive personal or business information.

"It´s like the Wild West", says Donn B. Parker of SRI: "No laws, rapid growth and enterprise - it´s shoot first or be killed."

To understand how the Internet, on which so many base their hopes for education, profit and international competitiveness,
came to this pass, it can be instructive to look at the security record of other parts of the international communications
infrastructure.

The first, biggest error that designers seem to repeat is adoption of the "security through obscurity" strategy. Time and
again, attempts to keep a system safe by keeping its vulnerabilities secret have failed.

Consider, for example, the running war between AT&T and the phone phreaks. When hostilities began in the 1960s,
phreaks could manipulate with relative ease the long-distance network in order to make unpaid telephone calls by playing
certain tones into the receiver. One phreak, John Draper, was known as "Captain Crunch" for his discovery that a modified
cereal-box whistle could make the 2,600-hertz tone required to unlock a trunk line.

The next generation of security were the telephone credit cards. When the cards were first introduced, credit card
consisted of a sequence of digits (usually area code, number and billing office code) followed by a "check digit" that
depended on the other digits. Operators could easily perform the math to determine whether a particular credit-card
number was valid. But also phreaks could easily figure out how to generate the proper check digit for any given telephone
number.

So in 1982 AT&T finally put in place a more robust method. The corporation assigned each card four check digits (the
"PIN", or personal identification number) that could not be easily be computed from the other 10. A nationwide on-line
database made the numbers available to operators so that they could determine whether a card was valid.

Since then, so called "shoulder surfers" haunt train stations, hotel lobbies, airline terminals and other likely places for the
theft of telephone credit-card numbers. When they see a victim punching in a credit card number, they transmit it to
confederates for widespread use. Kluepfel, the inventor of this system, noted ruefully that his own card was compromised
one day in 1993 and used to originate more than 600 international calls in the two minutes before network-security
specialists detected and canceled it.

The U.S. Secret Service estimates that stolen calling cards cost long distance carriers and their customers on the order of
2.5 billion dollars a year.

During the same years that telephone companies were fighting the phone phreaks, computer scientists were laying the
foundations of the Internet. The very nature of Internet transmissions is based on a very collegial attitude. Data packets are
forwarded along network links from one computer to another until they reach their destination. A packet may take dozen
hops or more, and any of the intermediary machines can read its contents. Only a gentleman´s agreement assures the
sender that the recipient and no one else will read the message.

But as Internet grew, however, the character of its population began changing, and many of the newcomers had little idea of
the complex social contract. Since then, the Internet´s vulnerabilities have only gotten worse. Anyone who can scrounge up
a computer, a modem and $20 a month in connection fees can have a direct link to the Internet and be subject to break-ins
- or launch attacks on others.

The internal network of high-technology company may look much like the young Internet - dozens or even hundreds of
users, all sharing information freely, making use of data stored on a few file servers, not even caring which workstation they
use to accessing their files. As long as such an idyllic little pocket of cyberspace remains isolated, carefree security systems
may be defensible. System administrators can even set up their network file system to export widely used file directories to
"world" - allowing everyone to read them - because after all, the world ends at their corporate boundaries.

It does not take much imagination to see what can happen when such a trusting environment opens its digital doors to
Internet. Suddenly, "world" really means the entire globe, and "any computer on the network" means every computer on
any network. Files meant to be accessible to colleagues down the hall or in another department can now be reached from
Finland or Fiji. What was once a private line is now a highway open to as much traffic as it can bear.

If the Internet, storehouse of wonders, is also a no-computer´s land of invisible perils, how should newcomers to
cyberspace protect themselves? Security experts agree that the first layer of defense is educating users and system
administrators to avoid the particularly stupid mistakes such as use no passwords at all.

The next level of defense is the so called fire wall, a computer that protects internal network from intrusion. To build a fire
wall you need two dedicated computers: one connected to the Internet and the other one connected to the corporation´s
network. The external machine examines all incoming traffic and forwards only the "safe" packages to its internal
counterpart. The internal gateway, meanwhile, accepts incoming traffic only from the external one, so that if unauthorized
packets do somehow find their way to it, they cannot pass.

But other people foresee an Internet made up mostly of private enclaves behind fire walls. A speaker of the government
notes, "There are those who say that fire walls are evil, that they are balkanizing the Internet, but brotherly love falls on its
face when millions of dollars are involved".

In the meantime, the network grows, and people and businesses ent

Windows NT

Once a small and simple collection of computers run by the Defence Department, is now a massive world wide network of computers, what we call the 'Internet'. The word "Internet" literally means "network of networks." In itself, the Internet is composed of thousands of smaller local networks scattered throughout the globe. It connects roughly 15 million users in more than 50 countries a day. The World Wide Web (WWW) is mostly used on the Internet. The Web refers to a body of information, while the Internet refers to the physical side of the global network containing a large amount of cables and computers.
The Internet is a 'packet-switching' computer network. When a person sends a message over the Internet, it is broken into tiny pieces, called 'packets'. These packets travel over many different routes between the computer that it is being sent from to the computer to which it is being sent to. Phone lines, either fibre-optics or copper wires ones, carry most of the data packets. Internet computers along the path switch each packet that will take it to its destination, but no two packets need to follow the same path. The Internet is designed so that packets always take the best available route at the time they are travelling. 'Routers' which are boxes of circuit boards and microchips, which do the essential task of directing and redirecting packets along the network. Much smaller boxes of circuit boards and microchips called 'modems' do the task of interpreting between the phone lines and the computer. The packets are all switched into a destination and reassembled by the destination computer. Today's Internet contains enough repetitious and interconnected circuits simply to reroute the data if any portion of the network goes down or gets overloaded.
The packet-switching nature of the Internet gives it sufficient speed and flexibility to support real-time communication, such as sending messages to other people in a chat environment (IRC). Every packet is written in a particular protocol language, called TCP/IP, which stands for Transmission Control Protocol/Internetworking Protocol. This protocol is the common language of the Internet, and it supports two major programs called File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and Telenet. FTP lets the transfer files from one Internet computer to another. Telnet lets a person to log into a remote computer. They have combined these two tools in complex ways to create the Internet tools such as Gopher, the World Wide Web and IRC.
Some collections of phone lines and routers are larger and more powerful than others. Spirit and MCI both have each built collections of phone lines and routers that crisscross the United States and can carry large amounts of data. There are six companies in the US with large, nationwide networks of high-speed phone lines and routers. These companies include, MCI, Sprint, AGIS, UUNet/AlterNet, ANS, and PSI. They make up what they often call the 'Internet Backbone'.
Data packets travelling on a 'backbone' network stay within that network for much of their journey. The reason is that there is only a handful of places where the backbone networks meet. For example, 1a packet travelling on a Sprint circuit to a Sprint router, can only transfer to an MCI circuit at certain places. This is just like how certain city streets often run parrel to each other for many miles before reaching an intersection. These intersections that they call 'Network Access Points' (NAP) are very crucial to the transmission of data on the Internet.
A Web is a program running on a computer who's only purpose is to serve documents to other computers when asked. A Web client is a program that interfaces (talks) with the user and requests documents from a server as the user requests them. The server only operates when a request for a document is made. The process of how this work is very simple, one example is; Running a Web browser, the user selects a piece of hypertext connected to another text -"Planes."
The Web client connects to a computer specified by a network address somewhere on the Internet and asks that computer's Web server for "Planes." The server responses by sending the text and any other media within the text (this includes pictures, sounds, movies) to the users screen. The World Wide Web does thousands of these transactions per hour throughout the wold, creating a web of information.
They call the language that the Web client and servers use to talk with each other the 'Hypertext Transmission Protocol' (HTTP). All Web clients and servers must be able to speak HTTP to send and receive hypermedia documents.
The standard language the Web uses for creating and recognizing hypermedia documents is the 'Hypertext Markup Language' (HTML). Another formatting language used for Web documents is 'Standard Generalized Markup Language' (SGML). HTML is widely liked because of its ease of use. Web documents are usually written in HTML and are usually named with the suffix '. html'. HTML documents are nothing more than standard 7-bit ASCII files with formatting codes that contain information about the layout (text styles, document titles, paragraphs, lists and hyperlinks). Hyperlinks are links in the document to go to other documents or another Web sight. HTML uses what they call 'Uniform Resource Locators' (URL) to represent hypermedia links and links to network services within documents. The first part of the URL (before the two slashes) specifies the method of access. The second is typically the address of the computer where the data or service is found. Further parts may specify the name of files, the port to connect to, or the text to search for in a database.
Most Web browsers allow the user to specify a URL and connect to that document or service. When selecting hypertext in an HTML document, the user is actually sending a request to open a URL. In this way, they can make hyperlinks not only to other texts and media, but also to other network services.
The powerful, sophisticated access that the Internet provides is truly amazing. It is spreading faster than cellular phones, and fax machines. The amount of people connecting to the Internet is growing at a rapid rate, along with the number of "host" machines with direct connection to TCP\IP. The main reason that the Internet is flourishing so rapidly is because of the freedom, there is no one who actually owns the Internet and no rules for users. As the Internet grows, many new activities are joining in, like 'Internet Radio', which will support real-time call-in shows and music to be sent over the Internet. As the Internet is expanding into another decade, it will become even more interesting and complex.

FOOTNOTES:

1.John Quarterman, The Matrix: Computer Networks and Conferencing Systems Worldwide (Bedford, MA: Digital Press, 1990), 42.

Windows 95 the O[S of the future

Windows 95 the O/S of the future

The way of the computing world is changing at a neck breaking pace. People are looking for
computers to be easy to use, and to make life easier for them. The computer manufactures
and software developers have started to tailor computers and programs to fit the needs of
the new "computer age". Graphical Interface Software (GUI) began to make computing easier
and people who never dreamed of owning computers began to buy them. Macintosh was one of
the first GUI computers to hit the market, but it was not IBM compatible, so it did not
take over the mainstream of the computer industry. Since most computers where being make
to fit the IBM compatible standards, Microsoft saw the need to replace DOS (Disk Operating
System) with something easier to use. That is when they developed Windows, which covered
the difficult to use DOS with a new face that made computing easier. The first Windows
was a start in the right direction. In an effort to make computing meet the needs of the
public, Microsoft developed Windows 95.

Windows 95 has the appearance of being a completely user friendly operating system and it
pretty much is as far as the average user is concerned. The compatibility with most
hardware makes it easy for someone to upgrade their computer. The desktop is designed so
the user has point and click access to all their open and closed programs. Utilizing the
32 bit programing it was written with, users are able to work with more than one program at
a time and move information between programs. This gives the user the freedom they need to
begin to explore the world of computing without having to learn all the "computer stuff".

Today everyone wants the fastest computer with the best monitor and fastest modem this was
an interrupt address nightmare until Windows 95 was developed. People didn't know what
jumpers needed to go where to make their hardware work. Or why their CDROM wouldn't work
since they changed their sound board. Most hardware periphials have all the configurations
built into a chip that communicates with Windows 95 to find out where it needs to put
itself in the address map. This allows users to have fancy big screen monitors and connect
to the Internet with high speed modems. They can also put in faster video cards that use
all the nice Windows 95 features, thus making their computing less complicated Windows 95
is set up with novice users in mind. As with Windows 3.x, it has boxes that open up with
the program inside called windows. These windows are used to make computing more exciting
for the user. No one wants to look at a screen with just plain text anymore. Before a
window is opened, it is represented by an icon. Double clicking this icon with the mouse
pointer will open the application window for the user to work in. Once the window has been
opened, all visible functions of the program will be performed within it. At any time the
window can be shrunk back down into an icon, or made to fit the entire screen. For all
essential purposes the user has complete control over his windows. Since more than one
window can be open at a time, the user can work with more than one program. Being able to
work with more than one program brings out other special features of Windows 95. In a
regular DOS system only one program can be open at a time. With previous versions of
Windows more than one program could be open, but they did not work well together. Since
Windows 95 is a 32 bit program, it manipulates memory addresses in a way that makes it look
as though your programs are running simultaneously. This makes it easier to share
information between programs. For example (I run Windows 95) while I am writing this paper
using a word processor, I am logged onto the Internet and have five different programs
running. I can move information from the Internet, or any other open program, into this
paper without stopping anything else, something entirely impossible in DOS. Some people
think the because they never see DOS anymore, it is not there. This could not be farther
from the truth. DOS is alive and well hidden under the Windows 95 curtain. But unless the
user wants to use DOS, there is no reason to even bother it. In Windows 95, DOS (version
7) has a few added goodies the some users enjoy. The biggest one is being able to open
Windows applications by typing the program file name at the DOS prompt. Another one is
being able to run more than one DOS application at a time. This does not work as well as
with Windows applications, but it has similar effect. DOS can be used alone, outside of
Windows 95, as before. Or it can be opened in a window on the desktop like a normal
Windows program, and can be manipulated in size and style. The desktop is where the icons
and windows we discussed before live. In older versions of Windows the icons lived in the
Program Manager. In Windows 95 they live under the Start button. Once the start button is
clicked, it displays a pop up windows. Moving the mouse pointer in the pop up windows
gives you access to the different programs available. Icons can also be moved onto the
desktop itself, these are called shortcuts. Double clicking a shortcut will open the
program the shortcut represents. Shortcuts can be linked to a program or a file, and can
be moved to any position on the desktop the user likes. You can also change the picture of
the icon to any "Icon" picture you have available. The desktop can be fashioned in any way
the user likes. For example colors and background pictures can be changed. Even the colors
and thickness of the window outlines and menus can be changed. While programs are open on
the desktop, they are displayed on the Task Bar at the bottom of the screen as buttons.
One option with the task bar is that it may be moved to any of the four sides of the
screen. The buttons have a picture and word identifier on them so the user knows which
button is for which program. Clicking once on the button will switch to the program
represented, which makes it easier to switch between more than one program. This just
about gives the user total control over his computer, which is what most users want.

The ease of use is what makes Windows 95 appealing to the "modern" computer user. In time
Microsoft will improve on the reliability of Windows 95, making it easier to work with.
Being the most complete and user friendly IBM compatible operating system on the market, I
feel that Windows 95 will be the dominant operating system for several years to come.

Will Computers Control Humans In The Future

Will computers control humans in the future?

People always tend to seek the easy way out looking for something that
would make their lives easier. Machines and tools have given us the
ability to do more in less time giving us, at the same time, more comfort.
As the technology advances, computers become faster and more powerful.
These new machines are enabling us to do more in less time making our lives
easier. The increased use of computers in the future, however, might have
negative results and impact on our lives. In the novel Nine Tomorrows
Isaac Asimov often criticizes our reliance on computers by portraying a
futuristic world where computers control humans.

One of the images which Asimov describes in the book is that humans
might become too dependent on computers. In one of the stories,
Profession, Asimov writes about people being educated by computer programs
designed to educate effortlessly a person. According to the Profession
story people would no longer read books to learn and improve their
knowledge. People would rely on the computers rather than "try to memorize
enough to match someone else who knows" (Nine Tomorrows, Profession 55).
People would not chose to study, they would only want to be educated by
computer tapes. Putting in knowledge would take less time than reading
books and memorizing something that would take almost no time using a
computer in the futuristic world that Asimov describes. Humans might began
to rely on computers and allow them to control themselves by letting
computers educate people. Computers would start teaching humans what
computers tell them without having any choice of creativity. Computers
would start to control humans' lives and make humans become too dependent
on the computers.

Another point that is criticized by Asimov is the fact that people
might take their knowledge for granted allowing computers to take over and
control their lives. In a story called The Feeling of Power, Asimov
portrays how people started using computers to do even simple mathematical
calculations. Over a long period of time people became so reliable on
computers that they forgot the simplest multiplication and division rules.
If someone wanted to calculate an answer they would simply use their pocket
computer to do that (The Feeling of Power 77). People became too
independent from the start making them forget what they have learned in the
past. People in the story The Feeling of Power would take for granted what
they have learned over centuries of learning and chose computers because of
their ability to do their work faster. The lack of manual mathematics,
which people chose to forget in the story, caused computers to be the ones
to solve simple mathematic problems for the people taking control of the
humans by doing the work for them (The Feeling of Power 81-82). The
reliance of computers went to such an extent that even Humans began to use
computers in all fields of study and work allowing computers to control
their lives by taking over and doing everything for them.

According to another story in the book, Asimov also describes how
computers would be able to predict probabilities of an event, future. In
the story All the Troubles of the World one big computer predicted crime
before it even happened, allowing the police to take the person who was
going to commit the crime and release him/her after the danger has passed
(All The Troubles of The World 144-145). This computer, called Multivac,
controlled humans by telling the authorities about who was going to commit
a crime causing someone to be imprisoned until the danger has passed. It
was the computer that made the decision of someone's freedom or
imprisonment and that controlled others to arrest a person it suspected of
committing a crime controlling his/her destiny. The decision of
imprisoning someone for a crime a person did not commit was all in the
hands of a computer. It was the computer that controlled humans and their
destiny and controlling other humans who believed in everything that
computer told them.

Multivac could not only predict the future but it also could answer
many questions that would normally embarrass people if they would have to
ask someone else about it. Multivac could access its vast database of
trillions of pieces of knowledge and find the best solution for one's
problem (All The Troubles of The World 153). All the people believed that
Multivac knows the best and allowed a computer to control their lives by
following the solutions Multivac had given them (All the Troubles of The
World 153). Humans followed a computer's solution to a problem they could
not solve themselves allowing a computer to take control over their lives
not allowing them to think for themselves.

In the Nine Tomorrows, Isaac Asimov often criticizes our reliance on
computers. The author predicts that computers will increase their role in
the future while the technology advances. Computers will become faster and
people will want to use them more to make their lives easier. Yet, just
like to any good side there is a bad side. Asimov reflects in his writing
that humans might depend on the computers so much that they will allow them
to control their lives.

Why stick to Qwerty

Computer Science 10

:), Why we should stick to Qwerty..

The Qwerty keyboard - named Qwerty because the letters q, w, e, r, t, y are arranged next to each other - has been the universal standard since the beginning of the 1890s. Since then, there have been many proposals by other keyboard makers to market products that would enable users to type faster. Other proposals put the most frequently used letters - dhiatensor - in the middle row.i Although these keyboards enable users to type far faster than the qwerty keyboard, they are rarely sold. There are several reasons for this. First, there is no need for the regular users to type any faster than at the current speed. Second, for the people whose job require fast typing, the new keyboards can lead to bigger health problems that develop from continuous typing. Third, and most importantly, standardization has led the qwerty keyboards to firmly hold the position as the keyboard.

There are major differences between the two types of keyboard users; the regular users and the other typists. The regular users are people who uses the keyboard for word processing, e-mailing, and internet; there is not much of a need for them to type extremely fast. They do not type mechanically but rather based on their thought, and thinking takes time. In other words, faster keyboards are irrelevant for them because they are not continuously typing. They need to think what they are going to write, one sentence one after another.

On the other hand, the typists whose job is simply to type, do so continuously. They also happen to be the major victims of repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) which is in large part caused by continuously stroking the keyboards. In an article about RSI, Huff explains the changes that the companies are undergoing to become more productive:
Many work practices are changing with automation to increase productivity. These include fewer staff, heavier workloads, more task specialization, faster pacing of work, fewer rest breaks, more overtime, more shift work and nonstandard hours, and more piece work and bonus systems. These work practices can entail very prolonged rapid or forceful repetitive motions leading to fatigue and overuse of muscles.ii

Because RSI is a major problem to the typists, it would be a suicidal move for them to adopt faster typable keyboards. More of them will develop RSI. As for the companies that hire these typists, not only will the frequency of RSI development increase, the amount of money that the companies have to compensate to the employees who develop RSI will also increase. The fact that the qwerty keyboard is less efficient presents typists from getting more serious health problems.

Finally, the role of standardization greatly influences where the qwerty stand in the keyboard market. Once the qwerty was standardized, no other types of keyboards could enter into competition regardless of how much more efficient they were. That is because a standardized layout enables users to have to know just one kind of layout. Keyboard layout is like different languages. If there are different languages being spoken when people are trying to communicate with each other, it becomes very difficult to understand. The communication would be very inefficient. What if a new keyboard becomes standardized? Navy studies in the 1940s showed that the change from qwerty to a more efficient keyboard would pay for itself within 10 days.iii However, this study shows the result from the corporation's view. Although corporations will certainly be able to make more money out of same amount of time by adopting the new keyboard, there are other factors that are not taken into account - human cost. If the new, more efficient keyboards are to be standardized, there would be enormous spending on reeducation, relearning, repurchasing, and replacement. The cost of doing this would be enormous.

In short, the qwerty keyboard is efficient enough for people to use. It's fast enough for regular users, and it's slow enough for typists to avoid further health problems. And, attempt to standardize a new keyboard would be extremely difficult and expensive. Yet, people might not even have to concern themselves with the keyboards anymore soon. The advancement of technology keeps bringing wonders to the world. In near future, voice recognition programs using microphones, might replace keyboards. Then, RTI - Repetitive Talking Injury - might be a big issue. Who knows?
i Huff, C., "Putting technology in its place" in Social Issues in Computing, Huff, C. and Finholt T. (Eds), McGraw Hill. 1994, pp. 2.
ii Huff, C., "Computing and your health" in Social Issues in Computing, Huff, C. and Finholt T. (Eds), McGraw Hill. 1994, pp. 103-104.
iii Huff, C., "Putting technology in its place" in Social Issues in Computing, Huff, C. and Finholt T. (Eds), McGraw Hill. 1994, pp. 3.

Virtual Reality 2

Virtual Reality - What it is and How it Works

Imagine being able to point into the sky and fly. Or
perhaps walk through space and connect molecules together.
These are some of the dreams that have come with the
invention of virtual reality. With the introduction of
computers, numerous applications have been enhanced or
created. The newest technology that is being tapped is that
of artificial reality, or "virtual reality" (VR). When
Morton Heilig first got a patent for his "Sensorama
Simulator" in 1962, he had no idea that 30 years later
people would still be trying to simulate reality and that
they would be doing it so effectively. Jaron Lanier first
coined the phrase "virtual reality" around 1989, and it has
stuck ever since. Unfortunately, this catchy name has
caused people to dream up incredible uses for this
technology including using it as a sort of drug. This became
evident when, among other people, Timothy Leary became
interested in VR. This has also worried some of the
researchers who are trying to create very real applications
for medical, space, physical, chemical, and entertainment
uses among other things.

In order to create this alternate reality, however, you
need to find ways to create the illusion of reality with a
piece of machinery known as the computer. This is done with
several computer-user interfaces used to simulate the
senses. Among these, are stereoscopic glasses to make the
simulated world look real, a 3D auditory display to give
depth to sound, sensor lined gloves to simulate tactile
feedback, and head-trackers to follow the orientation of the
head. Since the technology is fairly young, these
interfaces have not been perfected, making for a somewhat
cartoonish simulated reality.

Stereoscopic vision is probably the most important
feature of VR because in real life, people rely mainly on
vision to get places and do things. The eyes are
approximately 6.5 centimeters apart, and allow you to have a
full-colour, three-dimensional view of the world.
Stereoscopy, in itself, is not a very new idea, but the new
twist is trying to generate completely new images in real-
time. In 1933, Sir Charles Wheatstone invented the first
stereoscope with the same basic principle being used in
today's head-mounted displays. Presenting different views
to each eye gives the illusion of three dimensions. The
glasses that are used today work by using what is called an
"electronic shutter". The lenses of the glasses interleaveÔe inflating air bladders in a glove,
arrays of tiny pins moved by shape memory wires, and even
fingertip piezoelectric vibrotactile actuators. The latter
method uses tiny crystals that vibrate when an electric
current stimulates them. This design has not really taken
off however, but the other two methods are being more
actively researched. According to a report called "Tactile
Sensing in Humans and Robots," distortions inside the skins
cause mechanosensitive nerve terminals to respond with
electrical impulses. Each impulse is approximately 50 to
100mV in magnitude and 1 ms in duration. However, the
frequency of the impulses (up to a maximum of 500/s) dependsÔoration simulations. Such things as virtual wind
tunnels have been in development for a couple years and
could save money and energy for aerospace companies.

Medical researchers have been using VR techniques to
synthesize diagnostic images of a patient's body to do
"predictive" modeling of radiation treatment using images
created by ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging, and X-
ray. A radiation therapist in a virtual would could view
and expose a tumour at any angle and then model specific
doses and configurations of radiation beams to aim at the
tumour more effectively. Since radiation destroys human
tissue easily, there is no allowance for error.
Also, doctors could use "virtual cadavers" to practice
rare operations which are tough to perform. This is an
excellent use because one could perform the operation over
and over without the worry of hurting any human life.
However, this sort of practice may have it's limitations
because of the fact that it is only a virtual world. As
well, at this time, the computer-user interfaces are not
well enough developed and it is estimated that it will take
5 to 10 years to develop this technology.

In Japan, a company called Matsushita Electric World Ltd.
is using VR to sell their products. They employ a VPL
Research head-mounted display linked to a high-powered
computer to help prospective customers design their own
kitchens. Being able to see what your kitchen will look
like before you actually refurnish could help you save from
costly mistakes in the future.

The entertainment industry stands to gain a lot from VR.Ô

V chip

What is a V-chip? This term has become a buzz word for any discussion evolving
telecommunications regulation and television ratings, but not too many reports define the
new technology in its fullest form. A basic definition of the V-chip; is a microprocessor
that can decipher information sent in the vertical blanking of the NTSC signal,
purposefully for the control of violent or controversial subject matter. Yet, the span of
the new chip is much greater than any working definition can encompass. A discussion of the
V-chip must include a consideration of the technical and ethical issues, in addition to
examining the constitutionally of any law that might concern standards set by the US
government. Yet in the space provided for this essay, the focus will be the technical
aspects and costs of the new chip. It is impossible to generally assume that the V-chip
will solve the violence problem of broadcast television or that adding this little device
to every set will be a first amendment infringement. We can, however, find clues through
examining the cold facts of broadcast television and the impact of a mandatory regulation
on that free broadcast. "Utilizing the EIA's Recommended Practice for Line 21 Data
Service(EIA-608) specification, these chips decode EDS (Extended Data Services)program
ratings, compare these ratings to viewer standards, and can be programmed to take a variety
of actions, including complete blanking of programs." Is one definition of the V-chip from
Al Marquis of Zilog Technology. The FCC or Capitol Hill has not set any standards for
V-chip technology; this has allowed many different companies to construct chips that are
similar yet not exact or possibly not compatible. Each chip has advantages and
disadvantages for the rating's system, soon to be developed. For example, some units use
onscreen programming such as VCR's and the Zilog product do, while others are considering
set top options. Also, different companies are using different methods of parental control
over the chip.
Another problem that these new devices may incur when included in every television is a
space. The NTSC signal includes extra information space known as the subcarrier and Vertical
blanking interval. As explained in the quotation from Mr. Marquis, the V-chips will use a
certain section of this space to send simple rating numbers and points that will be compared
to the personality settings in the chip. Many new technologies are being developed for
smart-TV or data broadcast on this part of the NTSC signal. Basically the V-chip will
severely limit the bandwidth for high performance transmission of data on the NTSC signal.
There is also to be cost to this new technology, which will be passed to consumers.
Estimates are that each chip will cost six dollars wholesale and must be designed into the
television's logic. The V-chip could easily push the price of televisions up by twenty five
or more dollars during the first years of production. The much simpler solution of set top
boxes allows control for those who need it and allow those consumers who don't to save
money and use new data technology. Another cost will most definitely be levied to
television advertisers for the upgrade of the transmitting equipment. Weather the V-chip
encoding signal is added upstream of the transmitter or directly into uplink units and
other equipment intended for broadcast; this cost will have to compensated for in
advertising sales and prices. The V-chip regulation may also require another staff employee
at most stations to effectively rate locally aired programs and events. All three of these
questions have been addressed in minute detail. Most debate has focused upon the new rating
system and its implementation. Though equally important, this doesn't deal with the ground
floor concerns for the television producing and broadcasting industries. Now as members of
the industry we must hold our breath until either the fed knocks the wind from free
broadcast with mandatory ratings' devices, or allows the natural regulation to continue.

Truth and Lies about Computer Viruses

Truth and Lies About the Computer Virus


Walk into any computer store today and there will be at least twenty or thirty computer virus programs. From the looks of it computer viruses have gotten out of hand and so has the business of stopping it. The computer user must cut through the media hype of apocoliptic viruses and shareware programs and discover the real facts.
Before we even start the journey of exploring the computer virus we must first eliminate all the "fluff." The computer user needs to understand how information about viruses reaches the public. Someone creates the virus and then infects at least one computer. The virus crashes or ruins the infected computer. A anti-virus company obtains a copy of the virus and studies it. The anti-virus company makes an "unbiased" decision about the virus and then disclose their findings to the public. The problem with the current system is that there are no checks and balances. If the anti-virus company wants to make viruses seem worse all they have to do is distort the truth. There is no organization that certifies wheather or not a virus is real. Even more potentially harmful is that the anti-virus companies could write viruses in order to sell their programs.
Software companies have and do distort the truth about viruses.
"Antivirus firms tend to count even the most insignificant variations of viruses for advertising purposes. When the Marijuana virus first appeared, for example, it contained the word "legalise," but a miscreant later modified it to read "legalize." Any program which detects the original virus can detect the version with one letter changed -- but antivirus companies often count them as "two" viruses. These obscure differentiations quickly add up." http://www.kumite.com/myths/myth005.htm
Incidentally the Marijuana virus is also called the "Stoned" virus there by making it yet another on the list of viruses that companies protect your computer against.
I went to the McAfee Anti-virus Web site looking for information on the Marijuana virus but was unable to obtain that information. I was however able to get a copy of the top ten viruses of their site. On specific virus called Junkie:
"Junkie is a multi-partite, memory resident, encrypting virus. Junkie specifically targets .COM files, the DOS boot sector on floppy diskettes and the Master Boot Record (MBR). When initial infection is in the form of a file infecting virus, Junkie infects the MBR or floppy boot sector, disables VSafe (an anti-virus terminate-and-stay-resident program (TSR), which is included with MS-DOS 6.X) and loads itself at Side 0, Cylinder 0, Sectors 4 and 5. The virus does not become memory resident, or infect files at this time. Later when the system is booted from the system hard disk, the Junkie virus becomes memory resident at the top of system memory below the 640K DOS boundary, moving interrupt 12's returns. Once memory resident, Junkie begins infecting .COM files as they are executed, and corrupts .COM files. The Junkie virus infects diskette boot sectors as they are accessed. The virus will write a copy of itself to the last track of the diskette, and then alter the boot sector to point to this code. On high density 5.25 inch diskettes, the viral code will be located on Cylinder 79, Side 1, Sectors 8 and 9."
Junkie's description is that of a basic stealth/Trojan virus which have been in existance for 10 years. They also listed Anti-exe as one of the top ten viruses but did not acknowlege the fact that it has three aliases. It's no wonder that the general public is confused about computer viruses!
I decided to investigate the whole miss or diss-information issue a little further. I went to the Data Fellows Web site to what the distributors of F-prot had to say about viruses. It is to no surprise that I found them trying to see software with the typical scare tactics:
Quite recently, we read in the newspapers how CIA and NSA (National
Security Agency) managed to break into the EU Commission's systems and
access confidential information about the GATT negotiations. The stolen
information was then exploited in the negotiations. The EU Commission denies the allegation, but that is a common practice in matters involving information security breaches. At the beginning of June, the news in Great Britain told the public about an incident where British and American banks had paid 400 million pounds in ransom to keep the criminals who had broken into their systems from publicizing the systems' weaknesses [London Times, 3.6.1996]. The sums involved are simply enormous, especially since all these millions of pounds bought nothing more than silence. According to London Times, the banks' representatives said that the money had been paid because "publicity about such attacks could damage consumer confidence in the security of their systems". Criminal hackers are probably encouraged by the fact that, in most cases, their victims are not at all eager to report the incidents to the police. And that is not all; assuming that the information reported by London Times is correct, they may even get paid a "fee" for breaking in... a computer is broken into in Internet every 20 seconds... Whatever the truth about these incidents may be, the fact remains that current information systems are quite vulnerable to penetration from
outside. As Internet becomes more popular and spreads ever wider,
criminals can break into an increasing number of systems easily and
without a real risk of being caught."
Then the next paragraph stated:
"Even at their initial stages, Data Fellows Ltd's F-Secure products meet many of these demands. It is the goal of our continuing product development to eventually address all such information security needs." In other words nothing is safe unless you buy their products.
Now that we have cleared the smoke on viruses we know that there are only roughly 500 basic viruses. These viruses are tweaked, renamed, and re-cycled.
So, what is a virus? First of all, we must be aware that there is no universally accepted naming practice or discovery method for viruses. Therefore all virus information is subjective and subject to interpretation and constant dispute.
To define a virus we must ask an expert. According to Fred Cohen a computer virus is a computer program that can infect other computer programs by modifying them in such a way as to include a (possibly evolved) copy of itself. This does not mean that a virus has to cause damage because a virus may be written to gather data and obtain hidden files in your system.
Now that you are aware of the hoaxes and miss-information about viruses you will be better equipped to deal with viral information. The next time you hear of a killer virus just remember what you have learned. You know that all viruses have the same roots.

The Telephone System

The telephone is one of the most creative and prized inventions in the world. It has advanced from its humble beginnings to its wireless communication technology today and for the future. The inhabitants of the earth have long communicated over a distance, which has been done by shouting from one hilltop or tower to another. The word "telephone" originated from a combination of two Greek words: "tele", meaning far off, and "phone", meaning voice or sound, and became the known term for "far- speaking."
A basic telephone usually contains a transmitter, that transfers the caller's voice, and a receiver, that amplifies sound from an incoming call. In the transmitter there are two common kinds of transmitters: the carbon transmitter, and the electret transmitter. The carbon transmitter uses carbon granules between metal plates called, electrodes, with one consisting of a thin diaphragm that moves by pressure from sound waves and transmits them to the carbon granules. These electrodes conduct electricity flowing through the carbon. The sound waves hit the diaphragm causing the electrical resistance of the carbon to vary. The electret transmitter is composed of a thin disk of metal-coated plastic held above a thicker, hollow metal disk. This plastic disk is electrically charged, and creates an electric field. The sound waves from the caller's voice cause the plastic disk to vibrate, changing the distance between the disks, thus changing the intensity of
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the electric field. These variations are translated into an electric current which travels across the telephone lines. The receiver of a telephone is composed of a flat ring of magnetic material. Underneath this magnetic ring is a coil of wire where the electric current flows. Here, the current and magnetic field from the magnet cause a diaphragm between the two to vibrate, and replicate the sounds that are transformed into electricity.
The telephone is also composed of an alerter and a dial. The alerter, usually known as the ringer, alerts a person of a telephone call, created by a special frequency of electricity sent by the telephone number typed in. The dial is the region on the phone where numbers are pushed or dialed. There are two types of dialing systems; the rotary dial, and the Touch-Tone. The rotary dial is a movable circular plate with the numbers one to nine, and zero. The Touch-Tone system uses buttons that are pushed, instead of the rotary that send pulses.
The telephone was said to be invented by many people. However, the first to achieve this success, although by accident, was Alexander Graham Bell. He and his associate were planning to conduct an experiment, when Mr. Bell spilt acid on himself in another room, and his associate clearly heard the first telephone message: "Mr. Watson, come here; I want you." Although Alexander Graham Bell had invented the telephone, his case had to be defended in court more than 600 times for this to be proven.
After the invention of the telephone, many other great technological advances were made, which boosted the telephone into a worldwide affair. The first great advance was the invention of automatic switching. Next, long distance telephone calls were established in small steps. For example, from city to city, across a country, and across

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the ocean. Following this, undersea cable and satellites, which made it possible to link points halfway around the earth sounding as if from next door. Finally, by adding three digit area codes, all phone calls, either to next door or around the world, could be done by the caller.
The first telephone company to establish a telephone industry was the Bell Telephone Company, in 1877, by Alexander Graham Bell. This did last for sometime, however, independent telephone companies were started in many cities and small towns. By 1908, many customers were being served by a new company called AT&T, which eventually bought out the Bell Company. Since it was costly to have the wires run to a household, many residential people often shared lines, which is called a party line. Although these lines were cheaper for the customers, it was a nuisance because only one person could use the phone at a time, and other households could listen in on the calls. Finally, the price of local calls was relatively low, however, long-distance calls were placed relatively high when compared to the local telephone bill.
Today, approximately 95% of the households across North America have telephones, which is creating a huge opportunity for companies that provide local and long-distance service. Although prices for calls are slowly decreasing, the competition between companies is increasing. This can be seen from advertisements on television and in the newspaper. And not only is this competing going to continue, it will increase as new technology is discovered.



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What is in store for the future? No one will now. However, some of the latest futuristic ideas that will soon be upon us are; television screens soon accompany the telephone, so that the caller can see who he or she is having a conversation with. Also, having all of the copper wire replaced with fiber optics will greatly increase the telephones capabilities. This will give us the advantage of sending very large pieces of information over the phone line. The only thing that we do know about the telephone, is that it sure has come a long way since its first discovery by the inventor Alexander Graham Bell. A man who will always be remembered.

The Origins of the Computer

This report is to be distributed freely and not to be sold for profit ect.
This report can be modifyed as long as you keep in mind that you didn't
write it. And you are not to hand in this report claiming credit for it
heheh.


The Roman Empire, founded by Augustus Caesar in 27 B.C. and lasting in Western
Europe for 500 years, reorganized for world politics and economics. Almost the entirety of the
civilized world became a single centralized state. In place of Greek democracy, piety, and
independence came Roman authoritarianism and practicality. Vast prosperity resulted. Europe and
the Mediterranean bloomed with trading cities ten times the size of their predecessors with public
amenities previously unheard of courts, theaters, circuses, and public baths. And these were now
large permanent masonry buildings as were the habitations, tall apartment houses covering whole
city blocks.

This architectural revolution brought about by the Romans required two innovations: the
invention of a new building method called concrete vaulting and the organization of labor and
capital on a large scale so that huge projects could be executed quickly after the plans of a single
master architect.

Roman concrete was a fluid mixture of lime and small stones poured into the hollow
centers of walls faced with brick or stone and over curved wooden molds, or forms, to span
spaces as vaults. The Mediterranean is an active volcanic region, and a spongy, light, tightly
adhering stone called pozzolana was used to produce a concrete that was both light and extremely
strong.

The Romans had developed potsalana concrete about 100 B.C. but at first used it only for
terrace walls and foundations. It apparently was emperor Nero who first used the material
on a grand scale to rebuild a region of the city of Rome around his palace, the expansive Domus
Aurea, after the great fire of AD 64 which he said to have set. Here broad streets, regular blocks
of masonry apartment houses, and continuous colonnaded porticoes were erected according to a
single plan and partially at state expense. The Domus Aurea itself was a labyrinth of concrete
vaulted rooms, many in complex geometric forms. An extensive garden with a lake and forest
spread around it.

The architect Severus seems to have been in charge of this great project. Emperors and
emperors' architects succeeding Nero and Severus continued and expanded their work of
rebuilding and regularizing Rome. Vespasian (emperor AD 63-79) began the Colosseum.
Which I have a model bad of. Built by prisoners from the Jewish wars the 50,000 Colosseum is
one of the most intresting architectural feets of Rome. At its opening in 80 A.D. the Colosseum
was flooded by diverting the Tiber river about 10 kilometers to renact a naval battel with over
3,000 participants. Domitian (81-96) rebuilt the Palatine Hill as a huge palace of vaulted concrete
designed by his architect Rabirius. Trajan (97-117) erected the expansive forum that bears his
name (designed by his architect Apollodorus) and a huge public bath. Hadrian (117-138) who
served as his own architect, built the Pantheon as well as a villa the size of a small city for himself
at Tivoli. Later Caracalla (211-217) and Diocletian (284-305) erected two mammoth baths that
bear their names, and Maxentius (306-312) built a huge vaulted basilica, now called the Basilica
of Constantine.

The Baths of Caracalla have long been accepted as a summation of Roman culture and
engineering. It is a vast building, 360 by 702 feet (110 by 214 meters), set in 50 acres (20
hectares) of gardens. It was one of a dozen establishments of similar size in ancient Rome devoted
to recreation and bathing. There were a 60- by 120-foot (18- by 36-meter) swimming pool, hot
and cold baths, gymnasia, a library, and game rooms. These rooms were of various geometric
shapes. The walls were thick, with recesses, corridors, and staircases cut into them. The building
was entirely constructed of concrete with barrel, groined, and domical vaults spanning as far as 60
feet (18 meters) in many places. Inside, all the walls were covered with thin slabs of colored
marble or with painted stucco. The decorative forms of this coating were derived from Greek

The rebuilding of Rome set a pattern copied all over the empire. Nearby, the ruins of
Ostia, Rome's port (principally constructed in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD), reflect that model.
Farther away it reappears at Trier in northwestern Germany, at Autun in central France, at
Antioch in Syria, and at Timgad and Leptis Magna in North Africa. When political disintegration
and barbarian invasions disrupted the western part of the Roman Empire in the 4th century AD,
new cities were founded and built in concrete during short construction campaigns: Ravenna, the
capital of the Western Empire from 492-539, and Constantinople in Turkey, where the seat of the
empire was moved by Constantine in 330 and which continued thereafter to be the capital of the
Eastern, or Byzantine, Empire.

Christian Rome. One important thing had changed by the time of the founding of Ravenna
and Constantinople; after 313 this was the Christian Roman Empire. The principal challenge to
the imperial architects was now the construction of churches. These churches were large vaulted
enclosures of interior space, unlike the temples of the Greeks and the pagan Romans that were
mere statue-chambers set in open precincts. The earliest imperial churches in Rome, like the first
church of St. Peter's erected by Constantine from 333, were vast barns with wooden roofs
supported on lines of columns. They resembled basilicas, which had carried on the Hellenistic
style of columnar architecture. Roman concrete vaulted construction was used in certain cases,
for example, in the tomb church in Rome of Constantine's daughter, Santa Costanza, of about
350. In the church of San Vitale in Ravenna, erected in 526-547, this was expanded to the scale of
a middle-sized church. Here a domed octagon 60 feet (18 meters) across is surrounded by a
corridor, or aisle, and balcony 30 feet (9 meters) deep. On each side a semicircular projection
from the central space pushes outward to blend these spaces together.

The Interestingnet

With only 1000 or so networks in the mid 1980's, the Internet has become tremendous technological change to society over the past few years. In 1994, more than twenty-five million people gained access to the Internet (Groiler..). The Internet users are mainly from the United States of America and Europe, but other countries around the world will be connected soon as improvements of communication lines are made.
The Internet originated in the United States Defense Department's ARPAnet (Advanced Research Project Agency, produced by the Pentagon) Project in 1969 (Krol). Military planners sought to design a computer networking system that could withstand an attack such as a nuclear war. In the 1980's, the National Science Foundation built five Superconductor Computer Centers to give several universities academic access to high powered computers formerly available to only the United State's military (Krol). The National Science Foundation then built its own network chaining more universities together. Later, the network connections were being used for purposes unrelated to the National Science Foundation's idea such as the universities sending electronic mail (today, it is understood as Email). The United States government then helped pushed the evolution of the Internet, calling the project: Information Super Highway (Groiler..).
In the early 1990's the trend then boomed. Businesses soon connected to the Internet, and started using the Internet as a way of saving money through advertising products and electronic mailing (Abbot). Communications between different companies also arose due to the convenience of the Internet. Owners of personal computers soon became eager to connect to the Internet. Through a modem or Ethernet adapter (computer hardware devices that allow a physical connection to Internet), home computers can now be made to be accessible to the Internet (Groiler..).
New Internet servers have evolved since the National Sciences Foundation's basic idea back in the 1980's (Krol). The majority of the home users subscribe to services such as Netscape, Prodigy, America Online, and CompuServe. These services are connected to the Internet and provide user-friendly access to the Internet for a reasonable monthly fee. These services are connected to a main server called the World Wide Web. The World Wide Web is a service that is defined as global international networking (Abbot). The Web makes all of the systems from other countries work together with compatibility. Thus, allowing the Internet to be internationally user-friendly. The United State's stock market has greatly benefited due to sudden interest and popularity in the Internet. Stock holders with share of Internet related companies have noticed a skyrocket in the prices over a short period of time.
The Internet holds an endless amount of information. From Chia Pets, to vacation sites, to the anatomy of a bullfrog, the Internet covers information on and about anything. For example, I was very interested in the sport Broomball when I played my first game at Iowa State's Hockey Rink. Not knowing much about the newly experienced sport, my interests grew to find out more about it. Using my computer, I typed in "Broomball" into Netscape. To my surprise, forty sites that contained the word "Broomball" popped up, and I was able to find out much more about the sport. One of the sights that I visited happened to be down in Australia, another up in Canada! From there, I now know that Broomball leagues can be found all over Canada, and that Broomball was first invented in 1981.
Millions of college student's lives have be effected because of the Internet. To college students, the Internet is a twenty-four hour library that can be accessed through various computer labs across campuses. To others, it is a way of electronically sending in homework, or sending a letter to a friend who is enrolled to a different college. It is also an exciting, growing spot to visit when boredom casts over. From obtaining information to Emailing, uses of the Internet can be endless for students.
With my personal computer set up with Netscape service along with a thirty dollar Ethernet Card, I am able to browse through the Internet in my dorm room. I often Email friends at the University of Northern Iowa, to my cousin in Chicago, and to friends back in my hometown Dubuque. This is quite handy because I quickly found out that the cost of phone calls can be ridiculous, and the wait for a computer to free up in the labs to be quite frustrating. In a few computer science classes of mine, Project Vincent is a system used with the Internet during class. In class, we use it to gain entry into different programs and software. I also use it weekly to submit my Computer Science 227 programming class homework, which is handy because I do not have to leave my room in order to do homework. In my English class, we often head over to a computer center and discuss previous readings though networking. Here, we can join each other in group discussion individually logged onto computers at the same time. From my point of view, the Internet has drastically changes my life since my arrival at college.
The lines once constructed for nuclear protection, have now proven to be a source of useful information and means of mass communication (Krol). The Internet aids education and makes the amount of resources endless. In the future, more and more colleges, high schools, and grade schools will soon be connecting to the Internet. Those who are currently connected, will definitely stay connected. From my point of view, the Internet will continually be the exciting road towards information and communication in the years to come.


Works Cited:


Abbot, Tony. On Internet 94: An International Guide to Journals, Newsletters, Texts,
Discussion Lists, and Other Resources on the Internet. 1994.

Krol, Edward. The Whole Internet. 1992.

The 1995 Groiler Multimedia Encyclopedia. "Internet." 1995.

The impact of AI on Warfare

The Impact of AI on Warfare.

It is well known that throughout history man's favourite past time has been to make war. It has always been recognised that the opponent with the better weapons usually came out victorious. Nowadays, there is an increasing dependency, by the more developed nations, on what are called smart weapons and on the development of these weapons. The social impact of AI on warfare is something which needs to be considered very carefully for it raises many ethical and moral issues and arguments. The use of smart weapons raises many questions on the price paid to develop these weapons; money which could be used to solve most of the world's social problems such as poverty, hunger, etc. Another issue is the safety involved in the use of these weapons. Can we really make a weapon that does everything on its own without human help and are these weapons a threat to civilians? The main goal of this essay is to discuss whether it is justifiable to use AI in warfare and to what extent.

The old time dream of making war bloodless by science is finally becoming a reality. The strongest man will not win, but the one with the best machines will. Modernising the weapons used in war has been an issue since the beginning. Nowadays, the military has spent billions of dollars perfecting stealth technology to allow planes to slip past enemy lines undetected. The technology involved in a complicated system such as these fighter planes is immense. The older planes are packed with high tech gear such as micro processors, laser guiding devices, electromagnetic jammers and infrared sensors. With newer planes, the airforce is experimenting with a virtual reality helmet that projects a cartoon like image of the battlefield for the pilot, with flashing symbols for enemy planes. What is more, if a pilot passes out for various reasons such as the "G" force from a tight turn, then a computer system can automatically take over while the pilot is disabled. A recent example of the use of Al in warfare is the Gulf War. In operation Desert Storm, many weapons such as 'smart' Bombs were used. These were highly complex systems which used superior guidance capabilities but they did not contain any expert systems or neural networks.

The development of weapons which use highly complex systems has drastically reduced the number of human casualties in wartime. The bloodshed is minimised because of the accuracy of the computer systems used. This has been an advantage that has brought a lot of praise to the development of such sophisticated (not to mention expensive) weapons. More and more taxpayer's money is invested into research and development of weapons that may never be used. This is because the weapons are mostly for deterrent uses only and no country really wants to use them because of the power which they hold. The problem with using sophisticated computer systems in warfare is that the technology being used may fall into the wrong hands. But who is to say what are the wrong hands? Most people tend to think that if the technology is on their side, then it can not be misused. This has been proven to be false when in the Gulf War a whole battalion of British armoured vehicles were accidentally annihilated by an allied American stealth fighter which contained complex computer systems which were thought to be faultless.

The major problem with the use of highly sophisticated weapons is the cost of development. The best solution to this problem has been found to be the fitting of old B52's with modern technology which is almost as good and gets the job done, all at a minute fraction of the price. The other problem arising from the issue is the control over the development and employment of such weapons. The solution to this problem would be an international control over development and use of weapons by independent organisations such as the United Nations. Also, associations can be formed in order to group all scientists who are involved in the development of the weapons in order to keep track of them. The use of the extremely high tech weapons should be reserved for cases where it is absolutely necessary. Although governments are eager to try out equipment on which they have spent millions and sometimes billions of taxpayer's money, the use of Al is showing proof that it is serving its ultimate purpose: to slowly move men farther and farther from the killing fields.

The History of Computers and the Internet

The History of the Internet and the WWW

1. The History of the World Wide Web-

The internet started out as an information resource for the government so that they could talk to each other. They called it "The Industrucable Network" because it was so many computers linked to gether that if one server went down, no-one would know. This report will mainly focus on the history of the World Wide Web (WWW) because it is the fastest growing resource on the internet. The internet consists of diferent protocals such as WWW, Gopher (Like the WWW but text based), FTP (File Transfer Protocal), and Telnet (Allows you to connect to different BBS's). There are many more smaller one's but they are inumerable. A BBS is an abreviation for Bullitin Board Service. A BBS is a computer that you can ether dial into or access from the Internet. BBS's are normally text based.

2. The Creator of the WWW-

A graduate of Oxford University, England, Tim is now with the Laboratory for Computer Science ( LCS)at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT). He directs the W3 Consortium, an open forum of companies and organizations with the mission to realize the full potential of the Web.

With a background of system design in real-time communications and text processing software development, in 1989 he invented the World Wide Web, an internet-based hypermedia initiative for global information sharing. while working at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory. He spent two years with Plessey elecommunications Ltd a major UK Telecom equipment manufacturer, working on distributed transaction systems, message relays, and bar code technology.

In 1978 Tim left Plessey to join D.G Nash Ltd, where he wrote among other things typesetting software for intelligent printers, a multitasking operating system, and a generic macro expander.


A year and a half spent as an independent consultant included a six month stint as consultant software engineer at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. Whilst there, he wrote for his own private use his first program for storing information including using random associations. Named "Enquire", and never published, this program formed the conceptual basis for the future development of the World Wide Web. I could go on and on forever telling you about this person, but my report is not about him.

From 1981 until 1984, Tim was a founding Director of Image Computer Systems Ltd, with technical design responsibility. In 1984, he took up a fellowship at CERN, to work on distributed real-time systems for
scientific data acquisition and system control.

In 1989, he proposed a global hypertext project, to be known as the World Wide Web. Based on the earlier "Enquire" work, it was designed
to allow people to work together by combining their knowledge in a web
of hypertext documents. He wrote the first World Wide Web server and
the first client, a wysiwyg hypertext browser/editor which ran in the
NeXTStep environment. This work was started in October 1990, and the
program "WorldWideWeb" first made available within CERN in December,
and on the Internet at large in the summer of 1991.

Through 1991 and 1993, Tim continued working on the design of the Web, coordinating feedback from users across the Internet. His initial
specifications of URIs, HTTP and HTML were refined and discussed in
larger circles as the Web technology spread.

In 1994, Tim joined the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS)at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). as Director of the W3 Consortium which coordinates W3 development worldwide, with teams at MIT and at INRIA in France. The consortium takes as it goal to realize the full potential of the web, ensuring its stability through rapid evolution and revolutionary transformations of its usage.


In 1995, Tim Berners-Lee received the Kilby Foundation's "Young
Innovator of the Year" Award for his invention of the World Wide Web,
and was corecipient of the ACM Software Systems Award. He has been
named as the recipient of the 1996 ACM Kobayashi award, and
corecipient of the 1996 Computers and Communication (C&C) award.

He has honorary degrees from the Parsons School of Design, New York (D.F.A., 1996) and Southampton University (D.Sc., 1996), and is a Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society. This has just been about Tim, but here is the real hsitory of the WWW.

3. History of the WWW dates -

"Information Management: A Proposal" written by Tim BL and circulated for comments at CERN (TBL). Paper "HyperText and CERN" produced as background (text or WriteNow format). Project proposal reformulated with encouragement from CN and ECP divisional management. Robert Cailliau (ECP) is co-author. The name World-Wide Web was decided because the name tells you what the reasorce does. HyperText is the language that users who want homepages on the internet use to write them. (See a sample of this on last page). In November of 1990 Initial WorldWideWeb program developed on the NeXT (TBL) . This was a wysiwyg browser/editor with direct inline creation of links. This made the WWW easier to use and navigate without having to type long numbers. Technical Student Nicola Pellow (CN) joins and starts work on the line-mode browser. Bernd Pollermann (CN) helps get interface to CERNVM "FIND" index running. TBL gives a colloquium on hypertext in general. When this happend the WWW really started sprouting because this new browsers made the WWW easier to navigate.


4. History of the World Wide Web dates 1991-1993

In 1991 a line mode browser (www) released to limited audience on "priam"
vax, rs6000, sun4. On the 17th of May a general release of WWW software was made avalible on Cern servers. This allowed people to start ther own internet providing such as America Online and South Carolina SuperNet. On the 12th of June a siminar was held for the WWW that allowed people to come in and see this new software in progres. I would like to skip ahead to present day because more intersting things are happening now.

5. Present Day World Wide Web and Internet reasorces-

The World Wide web today is the most popular reasource on the internet. Facts show that the internet has an average 45 million users on a day with one more joining every eight seconds. The internet transmits at a maximum speed of 100mb per second. Present day internet is fast and relyable, it is also very popular. The internet started out as just a few computers linked together, and now look what we have. The internet will live on forever, and so will the WWW. I belive that the WWW will be replaced by something in the next 10 years.

The Future of Computer Crime in America

Sociology Research Paper



Sociology per. #2



10/8/96



The Future of Computer Crime
in
America







Sociology Topics:
Future Society
Social Change
Social and Enviromental Issues
Deviant Behavior
Crime/Corrections



Name: Brandon Robinson Period: # 2
Page 1



The proliferation of home computers, and of home computers equipped with
modems, has brought about a major transformation in the way American society
communicates, interacts, and receives information. All of these changes being
popularized by the media and the wide increased personal and private sector use of the
Internet. All of these factors plus the fact of more and more business and government
institutions are jumping to make the use of these services has put a much wider range of
information at the finger tips of those, often select and few individuals whom know how
to access, understand and use these information sources. Often times today this
information is of a very sensitive and private nature on anything from IRS Tax returns, to
Top Secret NASA payload launch information. Piled on top of that many times the
individuals accessing these information sources are doing so by illegal means and are
often motivated by deviant and illegal means. It is said that at any given time the average
American has his name on an active file in over 550 computer information databases of
which nearly 90% are online, and of the 550 databases the number comes no where close
to how many time your personal information is listed in some database in an unactive
file. The "Average American" could simply sit in his/her home doing nearly nothing all
day long and still have his/her name go through over 1,000 computers a day.

All of these vast information files all hold the crucial ones and zero's of data that
make up your life as you and all others know it. All of these data bits, at the hands
100,000's of people. With little or NO central control or regulatory agency to oversee the
safe handling of your precious little ones and zero's of information. As it would seem
Arson Wells was little late with his title of "1984" . "BIG BROTHER" is INDEED
WATCHING, US ALL and as it would seem our BIG BROTHER is alot bigger then Mr.
Wells could have ever imagined. And that our BIG BROTHER is EVERYWHERE! The
100,000's of people that do have this information make up our modern BIG BROTHER
in the form of government institutions to private advertising companies, these people are
all the "trusted" ones who use our information everyday for legal and useful purposes but
what about the others who use their skills and and knowledge to gain their "own"
personal and illegal access to these vast depositories of information? These individuals
popularized and demonized by the media are often referred to as "Hackers" or "One who
obtains unauthorized if not illegal, access to computer data systems and or networks." or
the media definition "maladjusted losers forming "high-tech street gangs that are
dangerous to society" (Chicago Tribune, 1989) Which ever one is best fitted they are
indeed becoming a very serious issue and worry to some in our ever and constantly
changing American Techno Society. Because of the serious delection by our elected
representatives whom have valiantly once again failed to keep up with the ever changing
times, there is if any major or clear and easy to understand "CONSTITUTIONAL" (The
recent 3 to 1 over turn of the not only controversial but deemed UNconstituional law
culled the Communications Decency Act") laws as to the


Page 2

governing of the vastly wild and uncharted realms of cyberspace. The flagrant and
serious if not slightly laughable attempts of our technologically illiterate and ignorant
masses of elected officials. Sends a clear S.O.S. message to the future generations of
America to not only LOCK you PHYSICAL DOORS but also LOCK and double LOCK
all or your COMPUTER DOORS as well. In order for this society to evolve efficiently
with our ever changing technology rate. We as the masses are going to have to keep
abreast with the current events that are lurking out in the depths of cyberspace. Before
we, as a result of our inability to adapt and our arrogance and ignorance, are all products
of our own technological over indulgence. So to avoid the tragic and ending collision of
our own self manufactured technological self-destruction and the break-down of our
society, in every tangible aspect, as we know of it today.

I believe that in the future we are headed towards you will see our society divided
into Two major parts 1.) Those whom pose the knowledge and capability to obtain the
knowledge/information i.e.. the "LITERATE" and 2.) Those who don't pose the skills
necessary to obtain that crucial knowledge/information, i.e.. the "ROAD KILL" Because
in the future, the power structure will not be decided by who has the most guns or
missiles or weapons but the powers structure will be made up of little tiny ones and
zero's, bits of data giving to those whom ever poses the power of the knowledge and the
power to manipulate who has that knowledge. The "rich" and "elitist" will be the
knowledge posers and givers and the "poor" will be those with the lack of knowledge.
Knowledge will bring power and wealth and the lack of will bring.....well the lack of
power, wealth and knowledge.

Brandon Robinson
10/8/96 864 words


Sources

1.Thesis by Gordon R. Meyer "The Social Organization of the Computer Underground"

2.2600 Magazine The Hacker Quarterly

3.The Codex Magazine Monthly Security and Technical Update.

4.Secrets of a Super Hacker by the Knightmare

5.Personal Knowledge, Brandon Robinson

THe Evolution of the PC and Microsoft

Kasey Anderson
2/21/97
Computer Tech.
ESSAY


The Evolution of the PC

Xerox, Apple, IBM, and Compaq all played major roles in the development of the Personal Computer, or ³PC,² and the success of Microsoft. Though it may seem so, the computer industry did not just pop-up overnight. It took many years of dedication, hard-work, and most importantly, thievery to turn the personal computer from a machine the size of a Buick, used only by zit-faced ³nerds,² to the very machine I am typing this report on.

Xerox started everything off by creating the first personal computer, the ALTO, in 1973. However, Xerox did not release the computer because they did not think that was the direction the industry was going. This was the first of many mistakes Xerox would make in the next two decades. So, in 1975, Ed Roberts built the Altair 80800, which is largely regarded as the first PC. However, the Altair really served no real purpose. This left computer-lovers still yearning for the ³perfect² PC...actually, it didn¹t have to be perfect, most ³nerds² just wanted their computer to do SOMETHING.

The burning need for a PC was met in 1977, when Apple, a company formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, released it¹s Apple II. Now the nerds were satisfied, but that wasn¹t enough. In order to catapult the PC in to a big-time product, Apple needed to make it marketable to the average Joe. This was made possible by Visical, the home spread sheet. The Apple II was now a true-blue product.

In order to compete with Apple¹s success, IBM needed something to set its product apart from the others. So they developed a process called ³open architecture.² Open architecture meant buying all the components separately, piecing them together, and then slapping the IBM name on it. It was quite effective. Now all IBM needed was software. Enter Bill Gates.

Gates, along with buddy Paul Allen, had started a software company called Microsoft. Gates was one of two major contenders for IBM. The other was a man named Gary Kildall. IBM came to Kildall first, but he turned them away (He has yet to stop kicking himself) and so they turned to Big Bad Bill Gates and Microsoft.

Microsoft would continue supplying IBM with software until IBM insisted Microsoft develop Q/DOS, which was compatible only with IBM equipment. Microsoft was also engineering Windows, their own separate software, but IBM wanted Q/DOS.

By this time, PC clones were popping up all over. The most effective clone was the Compaq. Compaq introduced the first BIOS (Basic Input-Output System) chip. The spearheaded a clone market that not only used DOS, but later Windows as well, beginning the incredible success of Microsoft.

With all of these clones, Apple was in dire need of something new and spectacular. So when Steve Jobs got invited to Xerox to check out some new systems (big mistake), he began drooling profusely. There he saw the GUI (graphical user interface), and immediately fell in love. SO, naturally, Xerox invited him back a second time (BBBBIIIIGGGG mistake) and he was allowed to bring his team of engineers. Apple did the obvious and stole the GUI from Xerox. After his own computer, the LISA, flopped, Jobs latched on to the project of one of his engineers. In 1984, the Apple Macintosh was born. Jobs, not wanting to burden his employees with accolades, accepted all of the credit.

Even with the coveted GUI, Apple still needed a good application. And who do you call when you need software? Big Bad Bill Gates. Microsoft designed ³desktop publishing² for Apple. However, at the same time, Gates was peeking over Jobs¹s shoulder to get some ³hints² to help along with the Windows production.

About the same time, IBM had Microsoft design OS/2 for them so they could close the market for clones by closing their architecture. This was the last straw for Microsoft. They designed OS/2 and then split with IBM to concentrate fully on Windows. The first few versions of Windows were only mediocre, but Windows 3.0 was the answer to what everyone wanted. However, it did not have it¹s own operating system, something that Windows Œ95 does. 3.0 sold 30 million copies in its first year, propelling Microsoft to success.

So, neither the PC industry nor Microsoft was built overnight. Each owes a lot to several different people and companies. Isn¹t it amazing that so much has developed in just twenty-three years? Here¹s something even more amazing. Remember the ALTO? Guess what it had... a GUI, a mouse, a networking system, everything. So maybe we haven¹t come all that far.