E-SPEAIT / Aleksandr Voronkov

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Hacker ethic in the modern world (Week 12)

April 17, 2022

Hacker ethic in the modern world In this blog, I am going to talk about hacker ideals or rather known as "hacker ethic", firstly written by Steven Levy and draw an analogy with modern world. Access to computers - and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works - should be unlimited and total. Always yield to the Hands-On Imperative! The right to access information is an essential component of a democratic society. Information access is the freedom that gives the knowledge to create new and even more interesting things. However, the bad thing about society is how ignorant they can be to a particular topic without actually fully understanding it before they judge. Access to information should be free In my opinion, whether information is free or not is for the person who has it to decide. Information is not physical and is a pattern that can be copied over to different mediums. Information has its value, and its value depends on its substance and th

Two interesting cases about online censorship and about privacy (Week 11)

April 08, 2022

Two interesting cases about online censorship and about privacy "Back to the Future" banned in China To start with, China is the second largest movie market outside of the United States, so if a studio wants a movie to be a box office hit around the globe, it’s important to secure a release date in China. However, the country’s government only allows exact amount of foreign films to be released there each year, and there are very strict guidelines about what they will and will not allow in theaters. If a film doesn’t get approval, it’s officially banned throughout Mainland China. And unfortunately, there are some legendary films that sufferred this fate. There are films that are banned in China for reasons that some readers may find confusing. For example, the Chinese government banned "Back to the Future" because of its use of time travel and “disrespectful portrayal of history.” In 2011, China’s censorship board banned any entertainment that is connected with tim

Security situation in my home country (Week 10)

April 01, 2022

Estonian's Security Situation according to "Mitnick's formula" In today's blog I will try to estimate the overall security situation in my home country using Mitnick's formula. In my case, it will be Estonia. To start with, Kevin Mitnick is an American computer security consultant, author, and convicted hacker, best known for his high-profile 1995 arrest and five years in prison for various computer and communications-related crimes. He now runs the security firm Mitnick Security Consulting, LLC. He is also the Chief Hacking Officer and part owner of the security awareness training company KnowBe4, as well as an active advisory board member at Zimperium, a firm that develops a mobile intrusion prevention system. According to his formula security comes from: 1.Technology: networks, firewalls, antiviruses; 2.Training: awareness of different attacks; 3.Policy: set procedures and requirements. Technology: I believe that nowadays all people accep

Two opposite examples of ergonomics/usability/HCI (Week 9)

March 26, 2022

Two opposite examples of ergonomics/usability/HCI Sometimes the best way to illustrate the value of design is through examples of bad design. Good design most probably will go unnoticed and will stay invisible. However, if design is confusing, frustraiting or just too bad it will definitely annoy you. Picture 1: Enter your phone number [1] It is definitely funny to see these example of bad UI, but what if poorly designed user interface and wrong usage of technology could lead into huge disasters? The Space Shuttle Columbia Burned Up Because of PowerPoint After a piece of debris hit the space shuttle Columbia during launch on January 16, 2003, NASA had two weeks to prepare it for re-entry. Engineers were called to assess the danger, and after reading their reports, NASA decided that everything was just fine. Picture 2: Death by PowerPoint. The Slide that killed [3] So how did the experts so badly underestimate the damage to the shuttle? What did the most advanced space agency in the wor

A short depiction of an IT professional (week 8)

March 18, 2022

To start with, it does not really matter where you are from and who you are, the very first thing you need to do to become an IT professional is to start loving the technology. When you do something you love, you do it better. First of all, I do believe that the most crucial skill for the IT professional is to be able to retrieve the right information. And I am not joking when saying "Googling skills are important". However, it is not about knowing how to open Google Search, it is about knowing how to split up your task on small pieces and find the answer in the Internet. Because of the technological progress and evolution of the media, most of the stuff can be already found in the Internet. You just need to know what to Google. Picture 1: Google Search [1] Since I have already started talking about technological progress, one of the skills IT specialist should have is Adaptability. The IT landscape is evolving at a pace never seen before. Most probably, some of the stuff tha

Help keep flame wars under control (Week 7)

March 13, 2022

Have you ever asked yourself why people enjoy conflicts so much? Unfortunately, I can't answer to this question properly, because I am not a psychologist. But what I can say for sure is that people are often intrigued by conflict and find the subject very entertaining. Conflict between two people often causes an interesting outcome, and the people are often quite interesting. Without conflict stories would be boring, drama would be boring and life would be boring. One of the reasons why people enjoy conflicts is that people enjoy arguing with each other. Just imagine if you add an a nonymity to all this. Actually... you don't need to imagine anything. It is already existent and called Internet. Of course, it is virtually impossible to remain 100% anonymous on the Internet, however, in most cases "criminals" don't have any consequences. In other words, online communication provides tons of possibilities to express yourself in an online message. Usually commu

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