After my brief review of Blake's
Day 706 post on
THE 800 DAYS BLOG, I'd like to offer an interpretation of a key concept found in the ANONYMOUS image at the top of the blog (where it says "Because none of us are as cruel as all of us.")
The first interesting thing in the Day 706 post, just below the ANONYMOUS image is a video called "The Hacker's Manifesto."
I found the transcript, so if you'd like to read along or have trouble seeing the text in the video images, here's where you can get the transcript:
Myth's Scribd copy:
The Hacker's Manifesto/The Conscience of a Hacker (plain text)
This document is nothing fancy but it's got the words and is worth reading a few times even if you only view the video once!
Now, on to more of the article, beyond the vid...
Blake has offered up an article by PandaLabs Technical Director, Luis Corrons, about computer security trends, called "10 Leading Security Trends in 2011." Things in this article that are really explained well are:
- Malware creation
- Cyber war
- Cyber-protests
- Social Engineering
- Windows7 influencing malware development
- Cell phones
- Tablets
- Mac
- HTML 5
- Highly dynamic and cryptic threats
In the article, Corrons suggests that "Black Hat SEO" attacks are going to be something to watch and watch out for (mentioned under heading "Social Engineering") in 2011. Also, we really need to educate ourselves about plug-ins, media players and applications we use on everything from cell phones and iPod players to our home computers.
If you're interested in more information surrounding ANONYMOUS and related Cyber attacks, Blake has positioned links to some more informative articles at the close of the Day 706 post, right before a "Last Word" from Anonymous...
Lastly - some attention to the phrase,
"Because none of us are as cruel as all of us." Well, I think this statement is about apathy and maybe even bystander effect. Bystander effect happens when action is needed by one or more persons in a group or public setting - usually an action to return safety or ensure personal safety to one or all - but nobody acts to do what needs to be done in the situation. Sometimes several people in a crowd of, say, TEN people believe that 4 or 5 others of the TEN know what to do and are more capable of handling the situation than they are. Perhaps some people are frozen, unable to think at all of what would be best to do in a situation... regardless, inaction ends up harming one or more of the crowd or community because NOBODY does anything at all.
In many instances, the situation may be a "Bullying" situation and if nobody acts to help someone being bullied, this can definitely make the statement "because none of us are as cruel as all of us" appear like an absolutely true statement. By contrast, in some "mob" situations, emotion - ANY emotion and ESPECIALLY powerful negative emotion can influence a group to perform harmful actions and violence as a group (called "Herd Behavior") that would never occur if each person in that group were to stand alone and be asked to perform the harmful or violent action alone. In this way, too, people as a group can be infinitely more cruel than each individual would ever imagine him or her self to be.
Sometimes, INACTION can be as harmful as ACTION... in most situations, "right action" is needed. Our actions are important and it's important that we think through what actions we take, that we sometimes act when nobody else seems to want to or be able to.
In the end... ANONYMOUS seems to have taken a form of action that nobody else feels able to... Is it possible that much of the world is locked in a confusing or debilitating, large-scale bystander effect position against government corruption and those perceived to have too much authority over "us" as a general humankind?
Whoops - need a longer sentence than that last one? lol
I think not.
:)
The Day 706 post is associated with
Friday January 14 2011.
