Knowing Good from Evil

The concept of agency plays a big role in the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In some cases, when something is inherently wrong, the brethren counsel against it. However, when a medium is open to be used for righteous or evil purposes, general authorities will praise the good and warn of the bad. Instead of completely forbidding the medium (see BYU-YouTube 2007-09), they encourage members to take advantage of it for the benefit of others. With the constant emergence of new technology, church teachings continue to acknowledge the agency of its members. After reading Using Social Media for Gospel Purposes I felt empowered by the church’s invitation to use social media while being wary of its dangers. The feeling was comparable to that of a young man whose father buys him a new car and says “Here you go! Drive safely!” I’m grateful that the general authorities of the church were inspired to see the good that social media can provide and hope that, as new technology emerges, they will continue to invite us to exercise our agency and choose to do good with the tools we are given.

Closed vs. Open Source: Tracing Innovation

The documentary Revolution OS discusses the inception and growth of free and open-source software. It highlights the factors that motivated programmers to create alternatives to proprietary software while releasing its source code for everyone. While open-source software has its benefits, one of its inherent weaknesses is the lack of innovation. For the purposes of this post, a software is considered "innovative" if it is the first of its kind. Open-source and free software lacks innovation because it is an alternative. It aims to be better, cheaper and more open than its closed-source counterpart, which means a predecessor must exist. Chris Kuchin and I had a discussion about this, trying to find an example of open-source software that wasn't first preceded by a closed-source/propriety version. Unix inspired GNU. Linus Torvalds patterned Linux after the kernel run on university computers. And despite its overwhelming success, Apache began as an alternative to Netscape Enterprise Servers.

Examples of this trend are even more prevalent today:

Opera/Firefox/Chromium -> Internet Explorer/Netscape

GIMP -> Photoshop

OpenOffice -> Microsoft Office

SVN/GIT -> SCCS (Although Oracle recently released the source in 2006)

Blender -> Autodesk Maya

However, its important to note that the lack of innovation/originally is in no way related to quality. I regularly use both closed- and open-source software every day. I believe that the competition between the two represents a healthy relationship that further improves the quality of software for all end-users.

The Cuckoo's Egg

Cliff Stoll’s book, The Cuckoo’s Egg, immerses readers into the story of an astronomer who works with computers to track down a hacker that threatens national security. By recounting the steps he took to catch the hacker in parallel with the other events going on in his own life, Stoll recreates his environment, inviting the audience to suffer his trials, celebrate his victories and follow his train of thought as he comes up with one solution after another. By sharing his experiences both in and out of his lab, Stoll’s reality connects with the readers emotionally and loggically.

Before Cliff introduces the predicament that will govern the remainder of the book, he takes time to introduce himself. The reader can see that he’s a normal person-short on funds and trying to pay the bills. As the story continues, readers see his interactions with his superiors, friends and loved ones. This helps convert the reader to Cliff’s cause. When organizations withhold vital information, the audience suffers; when Martha shows her disapproval, readers understand Cliff’s motivation for redemption. And when Cliff unlocks another piece of the puzzle, the audience celebrates. By including these small details, the reader is immersed in Cliff’s life and has a better perspective of the experience.

Throughout the book, Cliff runs into a number of problems and challenges that he must solve in order to continue tracking the hacker. Now emotionally committed to his cause, readers can follow his train of thought that leads to solutions. For example, Cliff was unable to tracker when the hacker would log in to the system, so he built an alert system piece by piece until suddenly he had a pager that would go off when the hacker logged in. Likewise with other solutions, by following his process of problem-solving, the reader is immersed in this world of computer espionage and mystery.

While The Cuckoo’s Egg doesn’t contain cutting-edge technology, the elements of problem-solving and determination are still pertinent today. With all the advances between then and now, computers have only become more powerful, making those who run them irresponsibly even more dangerous. If we emulate Cliff’s dedication to defending his system, we can protect our digital content from the growing group of malicious hackers in this age of technology.