The talk I decided to analyze was the following one:

“The new bionics that let us run, climb and dance – Hugh Herr”

I’ve been watching TED talks for quite some time now just for fun and knowledge, and I have to say that this one would be one of my personal favorites. This is for a number of reasons, but the most important for me would be the topic. Bionic limbs and the like are exactly what I would like to get into the business of designing and making and this video is nothing if not inspiring for me. In terms of the style and techniques used in the video, and I may be biased, but I believe Hugh Herr does an excellent job of showcasing this technology and the work that the Center for Extreme Bionics has been doing at the MIT Media Lab.

This video shows Herr talking not only very passionately about the topic as it has had a profound effect on his own life, but also being witty and humorous when the topic may not seem as lighthearted for some people. Herr goes through some rather complicated technical aspects of how the limbs work and continues to use demonstrations and simple and easy to understand language to explain some of the amazing design at work. There is nothing that I can say that is not quite great about this TED talk. Herr fully covers the material and gives explanations for any of the difficult to understand aspects. He walks around the stage and even has someone dance on stage for him. He is thus taking full advantage of the spotlight and showcasing as much as possible. This coupled with his passion for the topic not only makes the viewer extremely interested as I was, but thoroughly involved with the talk. It sucks you in. I believe that this is the ideal way to conduct a TED talk and I would love to follow the lead of Herr and speak just as passionately and directly about my topic.

Thesis Statement: Within the past 40 years, the world has seen the birth and growth of hacktivism as a means to an end in terms of promoting both liberties and particular political agendas through internet and computer-based attacks and exploits. Hacktivism has developed this much thus far due to the vast, open, relatively unpatrolled and infinitesimally-connected nature of the internet and concurrent computer networks.

Introduction

• What is hacking?
• What is activism? Use of Kairos?
• What is hacking and activism, hacktivism, together?
  • “The subversive use of computers and computer networks to promote a political agenda” (Wikipedia)

History of activism & hacking

• Examples of very first acts of activism
• Beginning of hacking, beginning of the hacker era
• Rise of hacking competitions, hackathons

What it means to be a hacker

• Hacker culture
• Hacker ethics
• Risks and rewards

The web of opportunity and anonymity

• How the prevalence of the internet itself and computer technology promoted the growth of hacking, activism, and hacktivism
• How connected is everything really?
• Who and what if anything polices the internet?

Birth of Hacktivism

• The first hack to promote an agenda, first sign of hacktivism
• Progression of hacktivism to current day

Hacktivism versus activism, the Good and Bad sides of each

• Efficiency
• Effectiveness
• Means of conduct
• Possible outcomes
• Accuracy
• Stance of the law

Influence today and implications for the future

• Politics
• Cyber warfare
• Espionage
• Possible end or rather new beginning: Quantum computing within the next Decade

Conclusion

• Restatement of Thesis
• Internet incubator
• Birth
• Advantages
• Future Possibilities
• End with clincher

I’m thinking of doing my paradigm shift on Hacktivism and how it’s looked upon nowadays. Hacktivism is the use of computers, the internet, and networking to promote political ends. As technology and security has become more complicated and sophisticated, so have hacktivists’ methods in reaching their goals. Two infamous groups include Anonymous and Lulz Security (LulzSec). Some of their exploits include basic attacks to crash the website of the Church of Scientology, hacking and defacing the government-affiliated company InfraGard’s website, taking down the CIA’s website for 2 hours, and finding and alerting the UK National Health Service of a security vulnerability on their website.

Now, as one can see, there is a very vague sense of good or bad with the acts of these groups. Their motivations may be personal, for fun, or may actually have some larger goal. In the case of larger goals, large-scale hacks have also come from private state bodies and countries. At the same time, legitimate companies have endorsed the use of hacking to achieve ends. During the Arab Spring, when Egypt tried shutting down the internet, Google, Twitter, and SayNow, produced “Speak2Tweet” which allowed anyone to leave a message on certain telephone numbers which were immediately placed on twitter.

As of recent, Hacktivism has grown to encompass anyone with access to a computer and the right skills. Very recently a teenager hacked into the CIA director’s personal email and gained access to some very sensitive government information and then proceeded to practically brag about it to any and all news stations that would hear it. If hacking has become possible by so many means, does that mean it has become a more prevalent manner of activism? Is there an associated decline in other forms that can exemplify the change in mode? Also, as it does become more common, is it more acceptable and will technology and security be able to keep up or vice versa? This is what I would like to answer or at least discuss.

none. She left that day. Onward. Shuffling, pushing against a great roar of need. The silence shouts from the eyes.

A handshake, hug, awkward exchange of necessary gifts – well wishes or debts and grievances. Kept. for Exile.

broken sticks to shattered red. a crumpled body to match a crinkled date. no. no. no.

that inch on the paper, the screen, is not. Unreal, the space of blood and tears.

She stopped that day and looked around.

a hand. a smile. Irreplaceable. None.

Back in 2008, over 7 years ago shockingly, an enormous advertising campaign was started by one J.J. Abrams. The movie Cloverfield was essentially sold to consumers without a title, any real idea of a plot, or any mention of actors to portrayed. The trailer, or rather the teaser, was first aired with only the title of the producer and the air date. The trailer:



This overly successful marketing campaign drew upon some very basic elements of civic life. It showed the US being attacked, which any American would be both concerned about and suffer disbelief leading to heightened curiosity, and then it showed some very average people dealing with it. These are not the only two pieces, but they were what immediately stuck out to me. This was only one piece of the campaign as well. My RCL Blog posts will go in-depth about the rest of the campaign and dissect the tools that the campaign used to make Cloverfield such an attractive movie to go see without really any hint to the actual plot. My blog will also go into how these same concepts have been and continue to be applied else where in advertising and other means.

When I first opened the links to these two advertisements, I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting. I believe before I can begin to analyze either, I have to understand exactly what was going on in each, and so I re-watched both two to three times over. The first one I watched, Ronald Reagan’s Bear ad, depicts a “bear in the woods”. The narrator provides two positions on the bear: the bear is tame or the bear is vicious and dangerous. At this point it becomes inherently clear that the bear is synonymous with the Soviet Union as at the time, the US was unaware of whether they posed a real threat or not. The suggestion made to the audience in the video is that it would make sense to be prepared for the bear, to be strong. This is essentially a call to action, or rather an assertion of the stance Reagan takes in the Cold War. Regardless of what the bear/USSR is actually like, wouldn’t it be the most sensible to be prepared? Yes, it would be, I answer as does the audience. The ad has by a single question sided me with Reagan.

The next video is from 20 years later when Bush and Kerry are running. Almost taking the same stance as Reagan did, Bush aligns himself with the idea that it is wisest to be preemptively prepared. This video is rather different though as it does not use an extended metaphor like the bear ad. The actual video footage depicts wolves and at first the audio has nothing to do with the wolves whatsoever. This is a sharp contrast from Reagan’s video where the entire time, the bear was being built up as a metaphor for the Soviet Union. It is not until the very end with the line, “And weakness attracts those who are waiting to do America harm”, that suddenly the wolves begin to make a move towards the screen. My first thought was, “wow”, whoever shot this video had guts. My second thought was that, though the video comes off initially as very firmly informational with the citing of Kerry’s actions and the 9/11 terrorist attacks, it quickly makes an almost personal attack on the watcher. The viewer identifies with America and having the wolves approach them like that in sync with the idea that America may be in danger, gives the direct impression the viewer is in danger. Bush puts himself in the position where he would be the answer to protecting America, just as Reagan does.

The use of the animal imagery, the metaphors, and the subtle rhetoric all flow nicely in both ads to convince the reader to support the candidate by association with relative concerns. The candidates are not people, they are solutions.

Though the two speeches obviously had very similar tones due to the situation, it was clear that they had two somewhat different rhetorical situations that affected their audience in different ways. First of all, looking at the two speeches just from the positions of the two speakers paints two different pictures. One speaker is the leader of the nation that was just attacked. The other is a talk-show comedian. Both are constantly in front of the public and both are looked up to in certain ways. The president, being the leader of the nation, has an expectation to uphold what it is exactly that the people should be doing and how they should be reacting. The president, for lack of a better or more complex word, is the rock. Jon Stewart on the other hand is not in a position of literal power, but he does have a wide audience of the American people. He has the power to influence them just by being in front of them just as President Bush does. However, Jon Stewart’s role in the country as he himself says was to “sit in the back of the country and to throw spitballs”. He makes people laugh for a living. In a time of tragedy, what more could be needed? Jon Stewart understands this, but at the same time he is also someone who stands in front of the nation. He cares for the people and he is also one of them. He steps away from his usual casual demeanor in the show and talks deeply for a moment, bringing a rather astounding sense of realism to how big this event really is when most of the country is still in disbelief. He understands his role, but also how important it is not only for him, but for the people that he recognizes their grief rather than try to cover it up with humor. President Bush makes it a point to recognize the event and give strength and Jon Stewart does something very similar, but results in a more of a comforting effect. I believe that both speakers spoke completely appropriately and that how they acted and what they said needed to be done for a nation so shook up. They both spoke volumes about how it was the nation that should be commended for its ability to hold together in a time of crisis, but it was men like these who acted as they did, stood as beacons of support, that I feel was much of the glue that held the nation together.