Week 6 and Tutorial Tasks

When you think of the word 'hacker', what image immediately pops into your mind?
A masked bandit furiously typing away at a highly modified computer? A person experienced with computers pushing the boundaries?
In a world where humans speak the language of computers, hackers are able to move from one computer system to the other, rummage around and take information that they deem important. This can be your bank information if you're not careful.
Though just because hackers have a  bad name, does it mean that all hackers are in fact out to grab your bank details? Of course not. There is always good intentions thrown in with the bad, it's our interpretation of what hackers do for the 'good' that is up to us.

"Hackers seek to free information and are at pains to distinguish themselves from crackers, intruders who damage or steal data whether in simple forms such as denial-of-service attacks or in systematic and clearly fraudulent ways such as credit card manipulation." (Stockwell, 2013). I feel that it's important to have a distinction between hackers and 'crackers', it allows people to make an informed decision on the motives of hackers and the crackers. The practice of taking information through a computer is going to appeal to many people for different reasons
I decided to take a look at the full The Hacker's Manifesto, written in 1986 by 'The Mentor'.
I found it in full on a website called Technozen. http://www.technozen.com/manifesto.htm

What I further realised whilst reading it, is that hackers are pursuers of knowledge, unsatisfied with the menial tidbits of knowledge that are passed through society by people of importance such as school teachers or politicians. They actively seek it out and as a consequence they are classed as criminals. "You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals." (The Hackers Manifesto, 1986).


References: 
Stockwell, S.(2013).Politics Now. (NCT week 6 lecture notes)
Mentor, T.(1986).The Hacker's Manifesto.


Tutorial Task: 
I completed the voting compass for the 2013 Australian election and found that I was closer to agreeing with the Greens than the Labor or Liberal National party.
Though the results brought up a few anomalies, such as giving me results that supposedly linked me to the Greens even though I  had answered with a completely opposite response and belief. Though I am most likely going to support the Labor party.

Another online political participation scheme I found was the opinion polls from the Sydney Morning Herald.
http://www.smh.com.au/polls/opinion
Where you can go through and select different answers to questions/ opinions posted by the Sydney Morning Herald.