Proceedings document

When most people hear the word computer they think of a large computer chassis containing the CPU and whatever else they deem to be a standard desktop but the word computer covers a large range of devices, anything that takes an input, processes the information and produce some kind of output is considered a computer, the simplest example I can think of in this day and age is a calculator.

During the time of World War 2, a time where Germany was spending a lot of its money on military technology, usually when this time period is bought up attention is directed towards the guns or the tanks Germany was developing during the war but almost always flying under the radar is the German Enigma Machine which was made by a German electrical engineer Arthur Scherbius it was used by various countries for different reasons but it’s most notable use was during World War 2, simply put without delving too much into technical detail the Enigma machine was an encryption machine used to encrypt German communications during the war, According to BBC history it allowed the operator to scramble a message “ by using three to five notched wheels or rotors which displayed different letters of the alphabet. The receiver needed to know the exact settings of these rotors in order to reconstitute the coded text”.

The Enigma machine was finally decoded by Alan Turing who is often referred to as the father of the computer in 1939 using the “Turing Bombe” a device he designed specifically for the task of decoding the German encryption, had he not done so, the war might have looked and ended very differently

It is here that nations realised that computers and technology in general would be important to national security and would lead into what we call today Cyber Warfare, “Alan Turing’s work during this time could be said to have begun the digital revolution” (Cited in History Heroes: What he did).

I would have preferred to keep to modern day computers but couldn’t deny the importance of these two machines both in terms of misusing technology in the form of the enigma machine and eventually the birth of modern day computing in the form of the Turing Bombe and the work he did afterwards. This seems to me like a great example of pre internet misuse of computers.

Bitcoins is a form of digital currency created by a person or organisation going under the alias Satoshi Nakamoto, “It is not known whether the name Satoshi Nakamoto is real or a pseudonym, or whether the name represents one person or a group of people” ( Cited on en.wikipedia.org ) . Bitcoins were invented to be a decentralized currency as in they would not be directly controlled by anyone, there are no banks involved in how bitcoins are produced, this decentralisation however has served to be a double edged sword as it has become the favoured currency for some criminal organisations for both money laundering and use on what is called the deep web or dark net.

According to a blog written by someone who frequents the dark net “The Dark net and the internet are synonymous. The Dark net (commonly called the “Deep Web” is simply a deeper and harder to access part of the internet. It’s impossible to police the entire internet because people are always developing new ways of staying of the grid, the authorities will always battle with the Dark net and with the Internet” (cited on http://theanonymousinternet.tumblr.com/faq ) and was originally developed for the military for agents to communicate from far away and in secret before it was finally made available to the public domain in the form of open source software.

There are constantly new hidden websites popping up and most of them are hidden for a reason the dark net category of websites ranges from child pornography, drug trade and Identity theft to name a few. If you’ve ever heard someone say their door got kicked down by the police for browsing the web, this is what they meant. There is a thriving business of identity theft in the dark net and to go back to my concern on the privacy policy of some of the companies as I mentioned in a previous part of this paper, 1,222 pages of your personal information is in the hands of a group of companies that are targeted by hackers, your information could easily end up in the wrong hands if it already isn’t. According to a website I looked into while reading up on more information on the dark net called http://bestidtheftcompanys.com the price of a stolen identity is anywhere from $20 - $40 it also contains the fees of various other things you can find and trade for using bitcoins on the dark net.

The most famous dark net market website that has caught the attention of the mainstream media and bought attention to the ongoing cyber war went by the name of Silk road “ a black market bazaar that trafficked in any and all illegal goods, from drugs and guns to personal data and malware” ( cited on http://uk.pcmag.com/ ). The creator of Silk Road (Ross Ulbricht) would then go on to be arrested but not because the authorities managed to trace him down, but because he messed up and exposed his G mail account on the website. Had he not gotten too relaxed in his activities to the point of exposing his own G mail account he would never have been caught.

Silk Road was shut down by the FBI but it would just be replaced by its lesser known competitors who have no doubt learned from their predecessor. This is a glaring example of modern day misuse of computers to do harm to others and for criminal activities. As people become aware of this thriving underground network and it becomes easier to access thanks to new technology, you don’t need to be a computer wiz anymore to access the dark net meaning it can only become more of a problem moving forward, though some would argue that the potential for privacy away from the government outweighs the negative aspects of the dark net.

Stuxnet brings us full circle back to misuse of computers and technology at a national scale, the Enigma machine and Turing Bombe have led us to this: Viruses created for the purpose of crippling a nation and producing favourable results for another, no one knows who built it because it was intended for espionage though it is commonly believed to be a U.S cyber weapon. Stuxnet of all the inventions in this paper probably has the most potential for mass destruction. If I were to run a survey of what people thought was the most dangerous weapon in the world I would probably end up with most people saying nuclear warheads and other kind of nuclear weapons but what people fail to take into account is that, the nuclear weapons are developed and maintained by use of computers and computers can be infected very easily by a virus, especially one that is designed specifically for the task. That quote earlier “Today the most dangerous weapon, is the keyboard” is not to be taken lightly because of this.

People might think a virus infecting a nuclear facility is far-fetched but in 2005 Stuxnet did just that, lying dormant until the nuclear plant went live in 2007 then mimicking what appeared to be a perfectly normal series of accidents and according to the Symantec experts charged with analysing it’s code James Chien and Liam O’Murchu it would display details to the operators so they thought everything was running ok while subtly sabotaging key components in the background. The technical details of Stuxnet are more complicated than that but less relevant to my point than explaining what it did.

According to various websites like http://www.wired.com/ Stuxnet isn’t contained anymore and is now on the loose in the public domain. They say “The son of stuxnet found in the wild on systems in Europe” (Cited on http://www.wired.com/2011/10/son-of-stuxnet-in-the-wild/ 2011). The two Symantec security experts who analysed the original Stuxnet code James Chien and Liam O’Murchu had this to say about the malware code found in Europe “On October 14, Symantec started analysis on a new threat called Duqu which seems to be the precursor to a future Stuxnet-like attack. Parts of Duqu are nearly identical to Stuxnet but it has a completely different purpose. Duqu’s purpose is to gather intelligence and assets like design documents that will give the attackers the insights they need to mount a future highly-targeted attack on organizations such as industrial control facilities.” (Cited http://www.symantec.com/en/uk/outbreak/?id=stuxnet )on What would happen if it was reverse engineered to instead not shut down nuclear power plants but to somehow make them explode? The possibilities with this kind of cyber warfare are endless. There are probably many more examples of cyberwarfare that have gone undiscovered, the discovery of Stuxnet itself was a fluke and could have very well gone undetected. To an untrained eye the nuclear power plant in Iran would have looked like a perfectly normal series of events for nuclear power plant failure.

As many example as there are of computers and technology in general being misused there are also many more examples of them being used for good as evidenced in this research papers for every point maid here there is someone or some people actively fighting against that misuse. They are still a tool for good but like power to split an atom and harness nuclear energy that could power hundreds of thousands of houses which also turned out to make a pretty big bomb, they can be as dangerous as they are useful.

References with hyperlinks

Nova: Rise of the hackers 2014

Terms and Conditions May Apply 2013 32:00 mins

European commission “Right to access”

Max Shremms wiki page

Andre Lycett BBC History: Enigma Machine

History Heroes (Alan Turing)

Bitcoin wiki design

Dark net FAQ

Amber Newby Dark net ID Theft 27 JAN 2014

Silk Road PC mag 3 OCT 2013

Kim Zetter Wired.com son of stuxnet 17 NOV 2011

Symantec on son of stuxnet

Introduction

With the ever modernising world, well established companies are rapidly disappearing. Take a walk down any high streets and once familiar names are either now a rarity or gone all together – alas HMV and Woolworths. In this article I’ll be exploring why this is happening and whether the printed newspaper industry is doomed to meet the same fate?

1. 
   {A full comprehensive breakdown can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_British_newspapers}
   

As mentioned in the introduction. Modernisation has played a major factor is the downfall in familiar and well-loved companies. The reason why? Simple terms: if there’s no longer a need for the service provided or the service can be done elsewhere – consumers will use this option; costumers loyalty is an ever decreasing thing, especially to big companies were you always feel ‘my money doesn’t have value, they won’t miss me’ when in reality the old mantra off every penny counts is still extremely relevant. With an ever wide range of apps, online markets and smaller brands offering cheap deals, there’s even less need to leave your house to get what you need, weekly shops are done online, as is clothes shopping – the internet is a vast market that is only at the beginning of its powers. HMV and Woolworths were the biggest losers in this, the online market offered what they couldn’t, sales dropped heavily. Now these companies are more prominent online as their core market buy their movies online; when they aren’t streaming. Although Woolworths pick and mix is greatly missed, although that’s my personal bias right, enough of that. Another example that emphasises this is that with PS4 and Xbox One the brand new consoles, you can buy games by downloading them – which means you don’t have to go shop to buy them and it’s just another example of products being available for the consumer without leaving their house.

Similarities’ for the printed newspaper industry: greater app power, you can read your news online on a variety of apps, all for a cheaper price than paying for newspapers daily. You can get bulletins on news on your phone, which gives you up-to-date news something that a printed copy can’t do: constantly update. People needs in what they want in newspapers have changed – people are more interested in a balanced and well placed argument which many printed newspapers don’t provide, which begs the question – why would someone buy a newspaper that they don’t enjoy reading? When you can simply look up what they want to read online, close the tab and move on with life. The printed newspaper feels forced upon; the modern generation don’t have a particular interest in the whole newspaper, they’re usually interested in one article and want to read that. The biggest evidence of this for me is when I attended college, in my whole time I witnessed one newspaper being bought in as appose to students looking up articles online – which was an everyday thing. The point I’m trying to highlight is that I feel printed newspaper is the something this generation doesn’t really connect to. I feel that the core customer range for printed newspapers are 50-70 year olds. Which is a problem considering that once they’re gone, the next generation may not make up for the loss of that customer base.

With the similarities, there are also many differences. With DVD’s – could you realistically have any use for them outside of your house? Not particularly. However, with newspapers, they’re many peoples go to during their morning commute - I witness countless eyes fixated into their morning Metro, Guardian, London Evening Standard – it’s one part of your morning commute that is always guaranteed and you feel as if would be completely alien without them. However, people would’ve said the same in the 80’s about there being no Woolworths on every highstreets. Unlike other failing companies, newspapers can always change their content daily and keep up to date with that customers want. There are many printed newspapers that follow a certain political party during election not based on their opinion but rather conforming to the most popular party – to please their customers and in the hope of attracting new ones whose newspaper doesn’t share their particular views on the elections. Although a cheap policy, it does usually have an effect. {See: 2. http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/may/08/broadsheets-see-election-sales-boost-as-tabloids-make-few-gains}.

To begin with one favourable aspect of printed newspapers is:

A full breakdown of sales can be found here: {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_United_Kingdom_by_circulation}

References:

1. Website: Wikipedia – Date - 25th September 2015 – Article Name: History of British Newspapers Author Name: N/A

2. Website: The Guardian – Date – 8^th May 2015 – Article Name: ‘Broadsheets see election sales boost as tabloids make few gains’ Author Name: Jasper Jackson

3. Website: Digital Trends – Date – 7^th February 2015 – Article Name: Does staring a screen all day really damage your eyes?’ Author Name: Simon Hill

4. Website: Elephant Journal – Date – May 21 2012 – Article Name: 50,000 trees killed every week for Sunday Newspaper - Author Name: Lynn Hassleberger

5. Me.

What was the importance of Steve Jobs to Apple?

Introduction:

Steve Jobs founded Apple nearly four decades ago with the help of Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. Starting with just a small team of three, Apple managed to expand into a multi billion pound company. Steve Jobs served much importance to Apple during this time as he was instrumental to the success. Jobs took a different approach to technology which played considerable importance to Apple and its brand. Jobs was essentially “the creative force behind all technologies” (Washington Post, 2011) and it was Jobs who saw the marketing potential for their first ever Apple computer back when it was still being made in his parent’s garage. Steve Jobs was ruthless when it came to business; his thirst for innovation was what helped move Apple to new heights after 1997. Steve Jobs designed his products to be simple and easy to use: “Steve clearly had a vision- and he was determined to make others see it” (Fortune, 2015). There was so much more than the technical specifications of a product, in reality it meant nothing to Jobs just as it meant nothing to the average consumer. What mattered more was the experience for the user and how easy it was going to be.

Steve Wozniak argued that “Steve Jobs had no role in the design of early Apple computers as he did not know technology”, (International Business Times, 2015) however it was Job’s role to create the business and the partnership in allowed Wozniak to concentrate purely on the technology side. Steve Jobs was a valuable businessman for Apple even if he didn’t have the technical in-depth knowledge about electronics he had a clear vision on where it needed to go. Jobs wasn’t the inventor nor the engineer for Apple, in the early days it was Wozniak, Steve Job was heavily business oriented, he was the entrepreneur whose regime was to keep everything inside Apple secretive. Steve jobs saw himself more as a revolutionary who wanted to change the world. In 1984 Steve Jobs came out with the Macintosh, everything was graphical, no codes had to be memorised to input data Steve Jobs pushed the functionality for the benefit of the user, jobs changed the way we perceived technology

As much as Jobs was an asset to Apple he was also a hindrance: “Job’s vision got clouded” with “his ego getting the better” (Entrepreneur, 2015) another source which shares the same view point is (Business Insider, 2013) also believes Job’s behaviour was “out of control and unacceptable” for him to continue at Apple. However it was a turning point for Jobs: “getting fired from Apple was the best thing that ever happened to me” (Stanford Commencement Address, 2005). Jobs had entered a period of his life where he became truly work driven; this would help Apple climb back to the top with products that truly innovated. The importance of Steve Jobs to Apple was vital because though he was becoming more creative and eager, financially Apple was doing worse without him. This is when the importance of Steve Jobs meant a lot to Apple and they needed him back in helping make the company great again. More than ten years later Apple’s presence in the technology industry was fading, Steve Job was brought back he was able to pull Apple from the brink with a new strategy to what some call “the greatest turnaround in the history of corporate America”(The Truth of Steve Jobs, 2011).

Over the course of more than a decade beginning in 2001 Jobs had a vision for Apple to be more than just a computers, it was time to branch out. Computers were just the start, Jobs was building an extensive eco- system which included music, movies and applications. Jobs made Apple to have total control over its whole eco system” (Isaacson, p.442) in the name of simplicity. It was a refreshing change to the other competitors who had bloat ware and slow user interfaces which lagged.

By 2007 the first iPhone was released. The phone was a game changer, an innovation that revolutionised the mobile industry with a completely touch based system. Jobs had learnt from his past experiences to a point where his love of simplicity “fuelled a design revolution” (Smithsonian, 2012). It was under Job’s leadership that allowed Apple to give way for “features that are now standard of other mobile platforms” (Computer World, 2011). Jobs knew that “an industry dominated by top players like Microsoft would find it very difficult to “adapt into the world of personal media and communication devices” (Bloomberg Business, 2011). Just as Microsoft was the key player of the computer industry, Jobs had made Apple the key player of the Smartphone industry Include apple stores, “reinventing the role of a store in defining a brand” (Isaacson, 2011). Through Jobs Apple was able to gain ground as a premium brand that sold top quality products which were always pushing the boundaries of innovation. This growing reputation is why Apple is still going from strength to strength every year, first it was Steve Jobs as the trusted face of Apple now it is Tim Cook. Steve Jobs didn’t want Apple to be an average technology company he wanted to push out products which were purposeful and at the same time be simple and fun.

Steve Jobs Vision and Leadership

Steve Jobs believed that it was the customers that didn’t know what they wanted until it was shown to them. An example of this was the iPad which soon became an alternative to carrying laptops around due to their easy portability. Job’s ability to innovate and think outside the box has gotten Apple to where it is today. He was also a risk taker for releasing both the iPhone and iPad as these two could have failed yet they were game changers which transformed the way we interacted with technology. His leadership as mentioned in the introduction was ruthless. Jobs was honest and that’s how he best wanted to represent Apple, simple and to the point. He felt that a “core component of design simplicity was making products intuitively easy to use” (Smithsonian, 2015). Apple had become a strong brand thanks to Jobs. To many people Steve Jobs was Apple; he had co-founded it and guided it. His obsession to be a perfectionist further excelled Apple, its products trusted and highly regarded by many loyal customers. Steve Jobs was the face of Apple and he was doing everything right. Steve Jobs reformed Apples strategy, it stood how against other technology giants, Apple was fun, hip and cool, with advertising at the core of teaching consumers about new products. Anything Steve Job was creating he needed to find a reason to buy it himself otherwise what was the purpose of it, this was important because it gave him an understanding to what people needed and what they wanted. When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 he blamed the product for the failure of Apple, this showed us that he recognised what needed to be done to help save Apple from losing even more money.

Steve Jobs importance to Apple was instrumental in revolutionising the way we used technology. On Furthermore Jobs helped save Apple from the brink of bankruptcy, opening up two different new markets for the iPhone and iPad instead of playing it safe like Microsoft. Steve Jobs was able to expand Apples presence in not only the computer industry but also the mobile space where arguably it became the golden age for not only Steve Jobs but Apple too. Steve Jobs had orchestrated a clear strategy for Apple and by spreading out into different markets Apple was able to pull in substantial profits. Jobs importance to Apple became more significant over the later periods of his life, he was able to set out a clear outline on where he wanted to take Apple and without him Apple would definitely have not been the most expensive company in the world without his vision and direction. There is no doubt that Apple needed Jobs to survive, Jobs has had to adapt over the years to see Apple through tough times which is why he played a great importance in getting Apple to where it is today. He is “one of the most influential figures of the century” (BBC, 2015) for his contribution to Apple in innovating and revolutionising the way we interact with the world around us. Apple still follows Steve Job’s vision of staying simple, clean and friendly in the now ever increasing saturated market of smart phones and table and also has been able to make the Mac line into a cool and sleek brand in comparison to the clunky boxes it started with. Steve Jobs has been able to keep Apple at the forefront of the technology for decades now and even after his death has led Apple to become one of the richest companies in the world.