Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Estonian free software seminar at 18th December 2013

Current article compiling was supported by HITSA Tiger University program (in Estonian).

At 18th December 2013 was in Estonia at HITSA (http://www.hitsa.ee/ -
Information Technology Foundation for Education) seminar about free software and its possible usage at public sector, also in governmental institutions. Participants were from local city governments over all Estonia, Ministry of Education and Science, HITSA and its suborganization EENet (Estonian Education and Research Network), Tallinn City Municipality Education Board and free software experts Kalle Kebbinau, Rainer Aus and Edmund Laugasson. Edmund is also PhD student at Tallinn University, Institute of Informatics in FOSS field and his dissertation topic is strongly related with FOSS - “Free software strategies of managing information and communication technology infrastructure in Estonia”.

First presentation was by free software experts and spoke about free software meaning and value, especially for educational systems. Also were spoken the main reasons, why Estonia should switch to free software at all - what would be benefit and vision in this field for Estonia. Then were spoken about free software usage experience in Estonian schools and also international examples were highlighted. Also two schemes were introduced about ICT infrastructure based on FOSS and also vision of more practical ICT-education based on FOSS.

After first presentation there were discussion over the problem, that Microsoft has increased their prices for schools up to 25 times. Mr Jaak Anton from Estonian Ministry of Education and Science announced, that they could establish a new contract with Microsoft - until the year 2017 1st July will prices remain onto same level as currently - approximately 3€ per computer per year for both of MS Windows and MS Office. Then prices will start increase progressively. This announcement caused active discussion and main result was, that now we have some more time to carefully plan transition to free software. All agreed, that this is temporary solution and transition to free software must come anyway.

The most important breakthrough - there has been noticed attitude change of decisionmakers - they now understands, that change is necessary and free software is the solution. It takes time and we are bringing Munich experience as one recent example from Europe.

Second presentation showed by EENet and they spoke about central identification system TAAT and based on that, in turn also OpenLDAP-based authentication solution for Estonian public sector. Also connecting different public and educational services authentications under the same umbrella was one topic. One important moment is also connecting authentication with EHIS - Estonian Education Information System. There is also plan to connect this authentication system with other services over all Europe, called eduGAIN. EENet is also planning to create Estonian own educational cloud based on ownCloud. There is also software central management project called Manpremo, which is started by estonians and looking currently developers.

Third presentation were made by Kätlin Kalde from Tallinn City Municipality Education Board about free software pilot project in Tallinn. This involves 3 schools and 2 kindergartens, which will be completely switched to free software. There are also Kalle Kebbinau and Edmund Laugasson involved as external experts into this pilot project. During that pilot project also cloud service based ownCloud will be set up, central management based OpenNode and central authentication based on OpenLDAP. Monitoring will be done using Zabbix. Operating system will be customized version of Lubuntu 12.04 LTS due to fact, that schools still have some old hardware. Ubuntu platform has been chosen by good hardware support and active development.

After presentations there were active discussion over presented topics and next steps. First step is to establish communication between interested sides. Second step is to create activity plan of free software transition with calculations. Then there can be start to plan next steps. Next big step will be open file formats in public sector - establish a situation where public sector in Estonia can change documents in open fileformats as strongly suggested also in Estonian Interoperability Framework document called “State IT Architecture v1.01 (2007)”.

In background there has been also Free Software Competence Centre (FSCC) creation process started. FSCC will be one part of Estonian Free and Open-Source Software Alliance (ALVATAL). This all takes some time when organizational part has been changed and is targeted to Q1 of 2014.

Links
article in Estonian about cheaper prices until 1st July 2017:
Estonian Education Information System, in Estonian: EHIS - http://www.ehis.ee/
central software management software Manpremo - https://www.manpremo.org/
Estonian Interoperability Framework 2011 (EIF 2011) - http://www.riso.ee/sites/default/files/koosvoime/interoperability-framework.odt
EIF document “State IT Architecture” - http://www.riso.ee/et/koosvoime/arhitektuur
Edmund Laugasson’s PhD study site - https://sites.google.com/site/phdedmund/
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Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Topic 12 - Social Engineering in Social Networks

week 6 (October 15-21), topic 12
  • Blog about a good case of social engineering
  • Formulate some measures which can reduce the effectiveness of social engineering attempts
In TV was one movie about stealing identity. The story was - how to steal the identity of British home secretary - is it possible and how easy it would be.

The whole story was a show, how easy it would be to warn other people and especially government to do something to prevent it in the future.

In 2007 has been one good documentary about stealing identity - "How Not to Lose Your Identity" by Bennett Arron from Great Britain. He got itself into fraud in quite simple way - shopping company has sent a mail to his old living address, where new resident and also fraudster in this case already lived. The mail contained a postcard, where some kind of home shopping company offered printed catalog. The fraudster ticked the box on postcard to request a catalog, which arrived with order form. The fraudster ordered some goods and that home shopping company opened an account with Arron's name. Then the fraudster bought mobile phone using that home shopping account as proof of his address. This buying using Arron's stolen identity continued until he could stop it. It took Arron and his family three years to recover from the identity theft. Arron approached the companies involved, seeking compensation, but they all refused. Also two weeks after the case that home shopping company stopped sending such postcards to request printed catalogues.

So, Arron started to investigate identity stealing techniques by stealing identities itself using phone book and chose randomly peoples. He stole victim's trash late at night. He got e.g. discarded bank statements, PIN-code notification letters etc, which gave him enough information to have immediate access to the victim's accounts, change their addresses and open new accounts.

First of all Bennett tried to steal his childhood hero Spiderman identity - Peter Parker during 30 days. He found from phonebook even two persons, who carried such name. Hed had the purpose to show to government, how easy it would be to steal someone's identity just by using phonebook and other freely available information. So - choosing the victims took 5 days. He went to the first Peter Parker's house and stole his trash bags from garden. Officially it should be a crime but Bennett took a risk. From stolen trash Bennett found also some useful data - bank security code and PIN-code notification letter.

Then he called to another Peter Parker in purpose to get know his date of birth. Bennett lied, that he is from bank and just checking some details about ordered credit card and among other things he asked the date of birth and got it! Bennett said, that when he has the second Peter Parker's date of birth - he can buy goods from online stores for hundreds of pounds. Lot of online shops doesn't check the person - who they really are and give £200 credit before they start to checking. So identity thieves can try several online shops to order goods with stolen identity...

Then Bennett met one female victim of phonecall, when someone stole her identity and lent a sportscar and disappeared...
Then Bennett went to the big shop and set up some movable walls with warnings about identity theft in U.K. as the most rising crime. He claimed himself as a free identity fraud protector and lot of people gave their personal data without any suspicion. He got 20 people's personal data within two hours (!) and only two people refused to give their data. So now Bennet could even open bank account in the names of these peoples! But he was so honest, that destroyed these papers with collected identities. I guess he could go even more deeply to show to government, how easy it was to collect such sensitive data and what is possible to do with such data - how much damage there can be and how long time it takes to recover.
Then Bennett meets one security expert and asks whether ID-card would solve the problem about ID-theft. The expert says - no.

Then Bennett received a letter from one of the online shops, where he bought photocamera. The shop asked additional provements and Bennett called to that company. Within the conversation the age was asked. Bennett answered wrongly - 34 instead of 24 and this online shop didn't give him credit to get goods before pay. He was quite upset but there was nothing to do - OK, got one lesson about identity theft, Bennett said.

Then he went back to first Peter Parker's house to steal some more trash from his garden by hoping to find some more documents inside with personal information he could use. He found some bank documents and got an idea to change postal address on his bank account.

Next morning Bennett has surprise - one of the online shops sent him goods, what Bennett ordered using first Peter Parker's identity. He got four pairs of shoes as spiders have 8 legs... Just for reminding - Peter Parker aka Spiderman was the hero Bennett is following during his identity theft experiment.

Then Bennett decided to meet that Peter Parker and own up, that he stole Peter's identity. He firmly proved to real Peter Parker, how easy it was to steal his identity by just stealing some trash from his garden and now he has bought even four pair shoes in his name... This meeting went in friendly atmosphere and real Peter Parker was also shocked, how easy this identity theft can be and he was the lucky guy, that this was honest Bennett, who made this experiment and not somebody else.

Then Bennett realized, that even he has a lot of provements how he stole Peter Parker's identity - it isn't enough to show, how serious problem it really is. So - he decided to steal U.K.-s home secretary Charles Clarke identity. Bennett decided, that he should steal the driving licence of his next victim. It's a two stage process - first step was to get Charles Clarke's birth certificate. It was easy to order someone's birth certificate in U.K. - you can order it by using free service in internet.

Then Bennett decided to get new copy of Charles Clarke driving licence in reason it was lost and with changed postal address and Bennett's picture and he readed some warnings from it - if to cheat, then two years in prison or £1000 of penalty is waiting... Bennett wasn't sure whether he wants to do that... But Bennett did it and few days later he got a mail and you don't believe - the new driving licence was there in the name of Charles Clarke but with Bennett's photo... But having a driving licence as a personal identification document, gives you plenty of opportunities to do in the name of stolen identity, whatever you want - only sky can be the limit.

Then Bennett parents visited him and he said to his parents, what he is doing about identity theft case. His parents were very concerned about such experiment and asked whether Bennett don't afraid to be prosecuted doing such criminal things. Bennett convinced then his parents, that he is doing right thing, because the identity theft is really big and rising problem in U.K.-s society and they shouldn't worry about him.

Bennett tried to organize meeting with Charles Clarke's office but it was refused and then Bennett was concerned about how to show and prove all this he has been done. He tried several times to rearrange meeting with home secretary but all the time it was cancelled. Bennett claimed, that he stole Charles Clarke's identity and therefore he wants to meet. I guess this was a mistake to say the reason, why he wants to meet.

Then Bennett decided to write an e-mail directly to Charles Clarke to announce him about the identity theft. Bennett even sent him the copy of driving licence application he used to steal Charles Clarke's identity. Even 5 days later he got no response from home secretary...

Then Bennett find out, that Charles Clarke will go to visit prime minister and he figured out the way home secretary will use when driving and he decided to be next to the road and show directly with posters, that he has Charles Clarke's identity. When Bennett drived to this place, he stuck into traffic jam. Then he went through this route and put lots of paper sheets onto walls and posts to show to Charles Clarke, that he has his identity... He even measured exactly half an mile from parliament to stay and start his protest meeting to show his stolen identity. He wrote onto big posters: "Mr Clarke - Your identity is in my hands". But he didn't succeed - Charles Clarke didn't catch it.

After 6 weeks he sent letters to mr Clarke's office, Bennett found from newspapers, that the home secretary has several problems with his response area and he wasn't anymore the home secretary. Then Bennett said, that he hopes the next home secretary will take more seriously the identity theft and Bennett doesn't need to steal his identity to convince him...

Certainly - this is the most desperate way to prove, how easy it could be to steal someone's identity and it is just amazing, that politicians doesn't do anything to stop this. At least Bennett Arron made this movie to show this and I hope the word will spread across the globe to warn people to be more paranoiac when giving out personal data over phone or throwing out important documents. Be warned - you could be the next victim of identity theft!

Some links:


Some measures which can reduce the effectiveness of social engineering attempts.
  •  be a little paranoiac - don't give your personal data such as date of birth, address, name etc over phone, e-mail etc to someone you don't know or not sure, who she/he really is
  • be a curious and ask, who she/he is and what purposes she/he have and what & why is planned to do when asking such sensitive information
  • never give any personal information out through electronic channels - if it's needed - ensure, that it is secure enough and you with another side are the only one persons, who are accessing this information to avoid spying
  • if you are the entrepreneur - please take it more seriously when selling anything or offering any kind of service - be doubtful and require at least double provement of identification
  • if there is possible - please require or use digital signing and/or encryption sensitive data when moving or storing it over unsecure channel like internet
  • whenever possible - avoid weak/vulnerable software such as Microsoft ones and other proprietary products - you never know, which spies has been there built-in already
  • update and upgrade used software frequently to ensure you're protected against sniffing at cyberspace - using e.g. Linux gives you more reliability due to fact, that they using software digital signing, which avoids lot of malware, including spyware
  • avoid proprietary file formats - they can leak sensitive information. E.g. avoid MS Office file formats (OOXML and older ones) and use OpenDocument ones. Even Microsoft released metadata removal tool (for MS Office 2003 only), most people doesn't know about it. Such tool (direct link) should built-in with MS Office itself... Newer MS Office 2007 has it already built-in - read further... Please read further also about metadata removal tools.
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Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Review of the work „Teacher-Student Online Relationship “

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In the article has been given an overview about teacher-student interacting online. First point, that came out – think before accept student invitation in social media. Teachers and also students have different roles to carry – this has to be remembered all the time.
There is also suggested to use some kind of different, academical environments for interacting – Edmodo (http://www.edmodo.com/), Kidblog (http://kidblog.org/) - sounds promising. It seems agreed upon the web space – it would be an interesting experiment: if to declare in one day, that newly created safeeducation.org or something like that - this is the safest place for kids - whether it will be embraced or not?
At the same time there are several references, which claim for better and more open community for learning. I agree with that and would also say, that utilizing nowadays ICT advantages makes more efficient community, which inspires more students.
As well as in the article has been said – teachers have to keep distance and not be too familiar. Otherwise teachers will lose their respect, credibility.Therefore I guess those very popular social networks like Facebook, Twitter – are not suitable for academical work. This would be like to make school at student's home – usually students spend their leisure time there and suddenly they have to work at the same place. Habits are a major force in – therefore in Facebook or similar are more temptations than needed. I would even suggest to use e.g. Mendeley (http://www.mendeley.com/) for such purposes but this has not been mentioned in this article. One suggestion was also to use protected website at school server.
Several moments has been pointed out:
  • watch, what and to whom reveal
  • unethical risk
  • amount of disclosed information affects students perception of the teacher
  • better self-disclosure of students
  • better teacher credibility
  • better social preparation
  • enchanced academic perfomance
  • social media isn't initially evil
  • social networking can easily lose control
  • misunderstanding by parents
Well – I would say, that interacting online isn't different than in real life – same courtesy should be used. Better disclosure – I would say, that this is the worst thing I've seen. Due to fact, that students will type fast, there are several typos and often words are shortened and a bit different language is used. This is actually dangerous against officially written language. So – requiring consistent language would be one of the key point using electronical channels interacting between teacher-student.
There are also spoken, that special methodology for teachers is needed. From article it is not clear whether such already exist or not. Due to fact, that actually there should be no difference between real and virtual relationship – I guess such special methodology would not be needed. It's true, that in real life there are some physical risks more but I would say, that words can hurt more than anything else.
There is also written, that psychologist, educational and ICT expert has been used for ideas – it would be interesting – who they are and which ideas they gave.
From results comes out, that foreign people feel more experts than estonians. Does spending more time at computer make better expert? The quality of time spent at computer is second key question.
Well – some ideas and suggestions have been pointed out – these should be mandatory lecture before interacting online.
I agree with claim, that when teacher is seeing students personal life – it can affect assessment. Also in other way – some students may ask more attention in classroom when having teacher as a friend and knowing something more than other students. This is not good for academical relationships. As it seems – old-fashion writing would be also one way. This can be nowadays e-mail but still writing a letter.
So – for conclusion: both teachers and students should pay attention about information they reveal online. Also keep some distance but use all benefits, what online interaction offers. Then everything would be fine.
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Sunday, December 16, 2012

Article in the field of Ethics and Law in New Media

My article can be found from here.
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Saturday, October 20, 2012

Topic 11 - From Hacktivism to Cyberwar

week 6 (October 15-21), topic 11
Find and blog about an illustrative case of hacktivism.

I would describe the case from the movie "Web warriors" (there is also Estonian version - movie is in English with Estonian subtitles and comments at the beginning).

This is the true story about Michael Calce aka mafiaboy - highschool student from Montreal and member of Russian hacker group TNT/Phorce. In this film all are talking about hacker but I would say cracker. Why? As we know, the hacker is clever programmer but cracker is cyber criminal. In previously mentioned movie there are three categories of hackers spoken:
  • white hats are good guys - virus hunters and/or your office IT-specialists
  • grey hats - they work both sides of the street: for good and bad guys. They are doing e.g. penetration testing hired by companies. Good example is Donnie Werner aka Morning Wood
  • black hats are bad guys - writing viruses or they are crooks - e.g. trying to steal your credit card numbers
I would say, that these black hats are crackers :) But e.g. Wikipedia thinks different. I respect what ESR says - hackers are good, crackers bad.

Internet was never designed to be secure - not to keep your bank accounting information etc for what we are using it today. So - why not to leave mission critical systems disconnected? For business efficiency it is quite impossible - systems needs to be remotely accessible to manage them faster.

We would say, that there is no secure computer or its network. As our famous hacker Michael Calce says - everything, what is online - it can be shut down (it means take control over the internet and if wanted - also shut down).

In the movie, hacker Donnie says that one week for research and one day to take down - power supply, switch off communication and basically turn off that military power we know - basically it paralyzes the country....

I would say, that I've seen myself, how Donnie does it. That international flight booking web portal has same weaknesses, what also some other systems have, which are created by same person - this wasn't mentioned in the movie.... Donnie demonstrated in the movie and also to myself, that less in 5 minutes he could get in (with one arm!)  into one international  flight booking system. The most worse thing is, that this system creator doesn't listen Donnie and don't fix these bugs. So - there might be several flight booking systems in the world, which are vulnerable for crackers...

It was honour to take part from two of Donnie's courses, where he showed a world alternative. This was awesome experience and this was actually just smelling that world... We made some penetration tests and noticed, how vulnerable MS Windows is... This would be an example for decision makers, who still thinks, that MS Windows can be secure operating system... The only reliable prevention is to move some free UNIX-like system (like Linux), which at least is designed to be secure system...

Nowadays there is one of the biggest hackers conference called DEFCON, which is most exciting event in this area and probably quite dangerous place to visit... There you can pay only with cash and no banking cards. This is actually good idea - in the place, where are approximately 7000 hackers over the world, isn't the place, where use your credit card :)

But Michael just prepared the weapon against another hacker group and didn't mean to attack any company or mission critical network... But he had to test it and choosed Yahoo, then CNN, Amazon, E-Bay, Dell... But when CNN were shut down - also 1200 other connected sites were disappeared... All these attacks were based on Pentium-133 computer.... That most damaging computer virus called Blaster... Antivirus for that virus was invented at F-Secure lab in Helsinki, Finland.

During few seconds approximately 50 million peoples remain without electricity - even some nuclear powerplants were shut down... There were approximately 100 powerplants shut down. In New York City emergency state were announced... Phone and water systems were not working, thousands of people were trapped into subway and elevators. Trains, aircrafts, ships were stopped. This all happened 11th to 14th August 2003, when largest blackout in history causes 6 billion USD in damages. Official cause was: overgrown trees on power lines... But there was much more than just trees...

Finally Michael was arrested due to swanking. He spent 8 months at youth prison. But he was actually first person,who showed that emperor has no clothes - how vulnerable internet is. Suddenly internet wasn't so nice place to do business.

Then Microsoft put announcement online, that they will give reward 250 000 USD for every arresting and conviction of dangerous virus writer. There are enormous collection of documents, what are collected by one MS Word macrovirus - this might be named also as spyware. My suggestion - use free and open source software and open data file formats - then you are much less threatened.

TJX - one of the largest online company (more than 2000 representations over the world) announced on 2007 of stealing their customers credit card data and other personal  information. This attack maybe happen through WiFi connection (used wardriving) and known as largest stealing of personal and credit card data over the internet - probably more than 94 million people were influenced...

Nowadays there are so called hacker toolkits in internet, which are bundle of carefully choosed programs and gives even for beginners opportunity to be small cyber thief. You can just tell, which virus you need and program will write it to you. This is very dangerous and makes easy to be criminal even by accidentally for some youngers.

In the end of the movie Michael says, that even 8 years later situation is almost same and he can repeat same attack if he want to... This makes me worry - how is situation today...

I have same opinion - mission critical systems should use separate network and not internet. We surely realize, that building similar network like internet is quite resources consuming, especially time and money.

So there might be also considered to use strong encryption, user authentication (ID-card or similar), asking confirmation code over SMS and/or special app at smartphone etc - multiple level of security.

But as we know - locks are created by humans and can be also broke by humans. So separating mission critical systems physically would be the best solution.

Who knows - perhaps Internet2 would fill that gap, what is needed to establish secure future. When every step would be traceable in time, every person who enters the internet will be known - perhaps it disciplines people to behave nicely.

Similar attacks by crackers might trigger cyberwar and possible WWIII. Therefore is very important to pay special attention for security with sensitive data and mission critical systems.

Some links:
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Sunday, October 14, 2012

Topic 10 - Different People, Digital World

Week 5 (October 8-14), topic 10
Choose a minority group and describe how they can make use of Internet to reduce alienation and prejudice.

I would choose old people - so called digital immigrants in our information society. They are usually looking nowadays computer related technologies (including internet) as not necessary to them. But who is using, finds it helpful and useful.

There is widely known, that old people doesn't use computer, internet and its related solutions, communities at all. Therefore bringing old people to information society is quite important to establish better unity in our information society.

First example, which comes in my mind - apartment society moved to web based management. Then all apartment owners should enter their monthly water usage data into that environment. There are also old people, who are apartment owners.

Suddenly they discovered, that even living in apartment and paying for it isn't possible without computer and internet. Also that apartment society management environment on web is sending PDF-invoices by e-mail - so old people do need also e-mail account.

Second example - necessity to communicate with children and/or grandchildren - they are often using internet for that - especially VoIP-solutions (IP-phone, Skype, Linphone, Google Talk, Facebook phone). I guess the IP-phone is most convenient way for older people to talk over internet and usually it's free if numbers are in same network. Then older people can call over internet without computer and often free. E.g. in Estonia (and also other countries) there is Linxtelecom, which offers IP-phone service - internal calls are free and outside network calling is also cheaper than usual.

I can bring one example using IP-phone with old people. One Estonian guy took his wife from Peru, Latin America. They came to Estonia but his wife would like to talk with her parents at Latin America quite often. Sometimes to teach using computers to old people would not possible - if they are very old, have visual impairments etc. So that Estonian guy bought two cheap IP-phone devices Grandstream BT-102. These devices had large LCD screen and buttons - perfect for older people. Then was calling to daughter in Estonia quite easy and free of charge - that Estonian guy used same device and service - so calls were free between Estonia and Peru over internet. You may imagine, how much there is to discuss :)

IP phone (Wikipedia)

Videophone over IP (Wikipedia)

Nowadays there is also videoconversations quite usual. So, this can be also environmental saving when there can be avoid travelling using fossil fuel based vehicles - usually are grandparents living in somewhere rural area far from their children or grandchildren. Also for people with visual impairments are solutions.
Skype videophone AiGuru SV1 from Asus - ideal for older people

 TelyHD brings Skype and other features to communicate in simple way

Free and open source softphone Ekiga supports also SIP protocol for IP phones
(for Windows, Linux, Mac OS)

Also free and open source Linphone brings SIP protocol support to Windows, Linux, Mac OS, Android, iPhone, Blackberry

Third example - using e-governmental and other e-services. In rural area there might be such services like banking or take some application to local government quite far away or even missing. Here comes the internet with e-services as almost only one solution for older people, especially at rural area. Then even older people will learn computers/internet and its software usage.

Gradually older people will discover also other possibilities of internet - reading news, e-mail or even listening radio or watching TV (e.g. in Estonia). After digital television coming there are also problems with regular radio waves - often is radio listening over internet only one solution - even in some cities (e.g. in Estonia). Also some older people know some foreign languages - there is also possible to read/listen/watch media in other languages, which would be without internet almost impossible due to its expenses on paper versions and often they aren't sold in rural areas.

Conclusion
When older people needs such internet-related services and devices - they need some assistance (by children or grandchildren) but it is possible, that they will start using them. There is also important if there are programs in motherlanguage - often older people doesn't know English. But using free and open source software (FOSS) brings more and better translated software to everyone.

Childrens or grandchildrens will sometimes give computer as gift to their parents or grandparents - this will help to bring also older people with low income into information society. Also using FOSS helps to reduce the cost of computer acquisition and usage.

In rural area sometimes is also mobile internet needed. This is not a problem, because data transfer limits for old people are more than enough - e.g. 3G/4G has enough limit (in Estonia 4G has currently 30 GB and 3G has 15 GB per month) - you can even configure computer to automatically receive updates and you can also watch videos/TV or listen radio over internet. This will also change in Estonia due to EstWin project, which brings cable-internet to every rural centre.
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Topic 9, part 2 - The Hacker Ethic in a Networked World

Week 5 (October 8-14), topic 9 part2
Write a short blogged analysis about the hacker ethic found in today's world (is it there of not, how much of it etc).

 For me are hackers clever programmers, who are "playing with cleverness" - sounds almost same as RMS said - "playful cleverness".

I guess, that current hacker ethics in today's world corresponds to Hacker howto  written by ESR. Hackers are skilled programmers, who are wroting code and sharing it (GitHub and other similar places). I realized, that most important is the "social machine" (hackers and their relationships with each other) around the code, not only code itself.

I would also say, that increasing hacker ethics and culture seems to be key requirement for efficient, well programmed and secure world in the future. Therefore such activities like Hacker Highschool, Codecademy, Google Summer Code etc are very welcome phenomenons in our information society.

 Often people say, that hackers are bad guys. Actually hackers are just good guys, who likes programming in very passionate way and they don't use their skills in bad ways. We can expect from hackers only penetration tests and then they definitely will tell to test subscriber, what were wrong and will fix it. So hackers are earning some additional income in very legal way.

 Crackers are often paid but also unpaid criminals, who are using their skills in bad way and there is nothing to do with hacker ethics. There is one movie "Web warriors" (also in Estonian) in example, what might happen when teenager will mix being hacker or cracker.

For youngers:

Internet - working and living environment for hackers:

Internet map based on ping (from Wikipedia)
Some news:

Some events :

 Some links:

Some l33t translators:
Some more stuff:
Text upside down:
Some other text distortions:
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