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Hackerteen Volume 1: Internet Blackout
stoolpigeon writes "Hackerteen Volume 1: Internet Blackout is an interesting new project, a graphic novel being published by O'Reilly. What makes it interesting is not just that this is a rather new direction for O'Reilly but that this is, to my knowledge, a rather unique publication in that it seeks to educate teenage youth about an array of issues ranging from privacy, free software, security and the impact of politics on personal freedom as it relates to the use of technology. Making topics like that exciting, and understandable to a young person may sound like a tall order, and I think it is." Read below for the rest of JR's review.
Hackerteen Volume 1: Internet Blackout
author
Marcelo Marques and the Hackerteen Team
pages
101
publisher
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
rating
7/10
reviewer
JR Peck
ISBN
978-0-596-51647-5
summary
You have a choice: be a victim of the skeezers or be part of the solution. Fight back with Hackerteen!
This book has an extremely interesting background and it is worth taking the time to look at. Hackerteen is not just a name, it is an edutainment program created by the Brazilian company 4Linux. The program consists of distance learning and instructor led classes that allow students to progress through a series of colored belts. Currently the classes are only available in Portuguese and on site only in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The Hackerteen site says that materials in Spanish and English are being developed now.
The curriculum, according to the site, arose out of a desire to deal with three problems.
Part of the mission for the book is introducing a wide array of issues and terms to the reader. Often a topic will or word will be accompanied by a footnote with a url for a hackerteen page holding an article containing relevant information. Not all the links are as informational though, with many linking to a graphic without much information. Hopefully these are placeholders for articles like the two that I've referenced here. A number of interesting topics are brought up, and a reader could research them on their own, or they would allow for good discussion points in a teaching setting. The only issue is that sometimes the placement of topics is a bit forced. A humorous example of this is when a teen-age girl who needed help choosing a web-cam, just a few pages later asks her aunt for money to attend a course on the Creative Commons.
The artwork is acceptable. It is at times a bit awkward, at others pretty solid. I think that it as at least as good as much of what I read when I was a teen, probably better than much of it. What is exceptional compared to the illustrated works of my youth are the materials and production quality. The cover is glossy, the colors are vibrant and the pages are going to stand up for a long time. Of course the flip side of this is that quality like this does not come cheap. The cover price is $19.99 and that's a bit steep for young kids today.
I think though that this has the potential to be a useful educational tool. I am hoping that some schools are willing to pick up that cost to allow their students access to this material, but a part of me thinks that may be a bit optimistic. I would suggest that for those of us who may hold some of these issues dear to our hearts, and who are sometimes dismayed at the attempts by many to influence the populace in a different direction, this may be a worthwhile investment. I think buying a copy or two, for relatives, a local school or library may pay dividends in the future. It is quite possible that for many this will be their first introduction to many of the issues presented in the book.
I loaned my copy to a co-worker. He and his kids read it. For them the introduction to Linux, the ideas of FOSS and others were brand new. When he returned the book my co-worker told me that he had never heard of the creative commons and I explained what it was. His boys he said were interested to see how the story would develop moving forward.
It's not easy making issues of freedom and safety exciting. The story is sometimes a bit over the top and the writing is sometimes weak. Internet savvy kids are going to struggle with some of the events, not due to glaring technical problems, but because some of the events are just a bit silly. That said, the options I've seen explaining these topics wouldn't just be 'o.k.' to a teen, they would be downright painful. So should we wait until the kids grow up to start teaching them what matters? I'd say this is definitely worthwhile and hopefully as the series moves forward it will only get better.
I think it is worth noting that while Marcelo Marques is the author, the book does list the full team who created it. They are Hugo Moss (story supervisor), Joao Felipe Munhoz (artist), Fabio Pontes Ramon Felin (colorist), Rafael Kirschner (colorist),and Ricardo Bomfim (colorist).
The slashdot review guidelines describe a 7 as "A good book; better than merely adequate, though not outstanding." The price, short length and acceptable but not great artwork put it there in my mind. I'm 39 and a younger person may not be as critical with the art or writing. It is good, and has great potential for impact. With a little bit better artwork, some stronger writing and if possible a bit lower price point this could be really fantastic. I'm looking forward to seeing how Volume 2 turns out.
You can purchase Hackerteen Volume 1: Internet Blackout from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
The curriculum, according to the site, arose out of a desire to deal with three problems.
- Excessive time spent by young people playing computer games on the internet.
- Young people committing digital crimes on the internet.
- A lack of professionals who work with networks and computer security.
Part of the mission for the book is introducing a wide array of issues and terms to the reader. Often a topic will or word will be accompanied by a footnote with a url for a hackerteen page holding an article containing relevant information. Not all the links are as informational though, with many linking to a graphic without much information. Hopefully these are placeholders for articles like the two that I've referenced here. A number of interesting topics are brought up, and a reader could research them on their own, or they would allow for good discussion points in a teaching setting. The only issue is that sometimes the placement of topics is a bit forced. A humorous example of this is when a teen-age girl who needed help choosing a web-cam, just a few pages later asks her aunt for money to attend a course on the Creative Commons.
The artwork is acceptable. It is at times a bit awkward, at others pretty solid. I think that it as at least as good as much of what I read when I was a teen, probably better than much of it. What is exceptional compared to the illustrated works of my youth are the materials and production quality. The cover is glossy, the colors are vibrant and the pages are going to stand up for a long time. Of course the flip side of this is that quality like this does not come cheap. The cover price is $19.99 and that's a bit steep for young kids today.
I think though that this has the potential to be a useful educational tool. I am hoping that some schools are willing to pick up that cost to allow their students access to this material, but a part of me thinks that may be a bit optimistic. I would suggest that for those of us who may hold some of these issues dear to our hearts, and who are sometimes dismayed at the attempts by many to influence the populace in a different direction, this may be a worthwhile investment. I think buying a copy or two, for relatives, a local school or library may pay dividends in the future. It is quite possible that for many this will be their first introduction to many of the issues presented in the book.
I loaned my copy to a co-worker. He and his kids read it. For them the introduction to Linux, the ideas of FOSS and others were brand new. When he returned the book my co-worker told me that he had never heard of the creative commons and I explained what it was. His boys he said were interested to see how the story would develop moving forward.
It's not easy making issues of freedom and safety exciting. The story is sometimes a bit over the top and the writing is sometimes weak. Internet savvy kids are going to struggle with some of the events, not due to glaring technical problems, but because some of the events are just a bit silly. That said, the options I've seen explaining these topics wouldn't just be 'o.k.' to a teen, they would be downright painful. So should we wait until the kids grow up to start teaching them what matters? I'd say this is definitely worthwhile and hopefully as the series moves forward it will only get better.
I think it is worth noting that while Marcelo Marques is the author, the book does list the full team who created it. They are Hugo Moss (story supervisor), Joao Felipe Munhoz (artist), Fabio Pontes Ramon Felin (colorist), Rafael Kirschner (colorist),and Ricardo Bomfim (colorist).
The slashdot review guidelines describe a 7 as "A good book; better than merely adequate, though not outstanding." The price, short length and acceptable but not great artwork put it there in my mind. I'm 39 and a younger person may not be as critical with the art or writing. It is good, and has great potential for impact. With a little bit better artwork, some stronger writing and if possible a bit lower price point this could be really fantastic. I'm looking forward to seeing how Volume 2 turns out.
You can purchase Hackerteen Volume 1: Internet Blackout from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
this is, to my knowledge, a rather unique publication in that it seeks to educate teenage youth about an array of issues ranging from privacy, free software, security and the impact of politics on personal freedom as it relates to the use of technology. Making topics like that exciting, and understandable to a young person may sound like a tall order, and I think it is.
See also Little Brother, a novel by Cory Doctorow that treads similar ground.
Colorist, are they? They should be ashamed of themselves.
What the fuck? O.o this is what the internet is FOR...
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
This perpetuates the myth that teens are the most savvy, computer-wise.
Yes, copying and pasting all those tricked-out HTML layouts on your MySpace page and downloading from iTunes == "amazing hacker"
Not to be picky, but the quality of those drawings really leaves a lot to be desired...
With this and Doctorow's new book, I'm beginning to wonder if teens even know about F/OSS (or computers in general). In all seriousness, we have this stuff that gives them simple bites of what is going on (here is the latest, new free software and why it is a good idea to use it), but it worries me that we aren't really teaching them how things work.
Perhaps you'd be interested in Cory Doctorow's Little Brother. [Free PDF download or buy the dead tree version.]
It was written for da youth by the editor of Boing Boing, someone steeped in the issues of personal freedoms and identity in the Surveillance Age. Here's the Purblisher's Weekly article.
The above poster is making a pun against the word 'colorist', mixing it up with 'racist', to chide the people involved in the book: he's not saying the colors are crap! (Which they are btw.)
They have to get an introduction somewhere. I'm so immersed in all this stuff - that I forget how many people have no idea. I had a college student this week-end ask me what Linux is.
My concern is that people like that wont know about O'Reilly either. But maybe stuff like this will help bridge that gap earlier on. I would really love it if schools, libraries, etc. picked up on this book.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
...sol [Connection reset by skeezer]
I can't wait for this new generation of "ethical hackers" to start tripping our honeypots. Basically it's FUN for 14 year olds to send goatse to a network printer, give teens the tools and watch it happen!
Those drawings are made by 1337 haxorz! how dare you question their quality! You will be getting teh haxed soon!
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
To rephrase what I said (saying FOSS was a mistake, I know), we are only creating more discerning consumers by taking this path. Of course this is a good thing given all of the crap software/spyware/malware/etc. out there (Facebook apps come to mind). But in the end no one is teaching them anything that won't be obsolete in 5-10 years. They need to know that these machines they are at sitting in front of aren't magic boxes, but tools that are to be used (and yes, manipulated).
You may have a paragraph or so about "marathon coding sessions", but that never really teaches them anything outside of our own kitsch. Of course I'm not knocking Doctorow or these guys, they really are the first to step out there in this field (and in this way), but kids crave substance and when they get real substance, they know it. This has the risk of being viewed as propaganda. The real answer is writing something that adults will learn from and then go from there.
There's plenty of those people around. PLENTY of em. They're all being offered shitty frontline tech-support jobs.
The computer industry does need smart people, that is a point i will always concede. But what they WANT is warm bodies to fill positions most of the times. There is a lot of smart people that actually went in computers, only to be destroyed by an industry that always seeks to benefit from education and technical know-how.... and trying to get away ( and succeeding) with not paying them for this. So eventually they give up giving a shit.
It makes it worse when a guy that actually went ahead and got himself an education makes less an hour that most forklift operators.
Peace and happyness to you, by LullySing
no, its the adults to read these books who are :)
A Young Hacker's Primer.
Any hacker worth his salt (or for that matter, any script kiddie who'd read the Hacker's Manifesto) would never willing buy any of this stuff. No amount of cartoon "Where in the Computer is Carmen Sandiego?" is going to turn a kid into a hacker, or turn a malicious hacker from his/her ways.
Yeah, but there really needs to be better introduction to the basics. It's very hard to talk new tech with somebody who can't differentiate between files that are on a local (hard) drive, removable media (cd, SD card, thumb drive) and somewhere on the internet.
I work in a 1-hour photo lab, and I shit you not, I've heard of people insisting that the pictures are "right on their computers" only to find out that they are, in fact, on some internet photo site. Then they usually have the gall to yell at my coworkers and I for making everything so difficult and giving them incorrect information, rather than owning the fact that we gave them the correct answer for the information THEY provided, which was (charitaBly described as) faulty, and that if they had half of a clue what was going on with their own stuff the problem likely would have never come up in the first place.
I'd much rather explain to somebody what Linux is and why it's awesome to a person who can successfully store and retrieve documents from a thumb drive on multiple computers than have to explain why a CD-ROM drive can't burn a CD to somebody purporting to be tech savvy.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
But in the end no one is teaching anything that won't be obsolete in 5-10 years.
There, fixed that for you.
On the other points of this discussion:
F/OSS is only interesting to people for two reasons. 1. They like the word "free" 2. They plan on manipulating the software.
Outside of that scope there really is little reason for most people to get excited about it. Evenso, introducing a novice coder to SourceForge is a bit overwhelming and should be avoided.
Another thing I'd like to bring up is that kids today do really seem to be behind the curve simply because the people deciding how advanced kids should be in the measures of education are looking at the wrong skill set to determine where little Suzy and Johnny fall in line. I will never understand why so many Joe and Jane Sixpacks out there are amazed that their kid can text at 15 WPM and think that it means their little brat is somehow tech suave. I have a 16 year old nephew who thinks he's up on the game because he can look up items on NewEgg and decided which one is better. He uses price as the one and only comparison figure. Sadly when I try to pull him inline he gets an attitude about learning what some of the other facts and figures mean because he's been shovel heaps of praise by parents, grandparents and educators for knowing how to create a slideshow of vacation pictures. He doesn't understand anything that's under the hood of the machine but because of the misdirection of his elders he thinks he does. It's gotten to the point that I'm ready to shrug my shoulders and let him spend what little money he earns and make expensive (in his own frame) mistakes. Maybe after going broke buying video cards that gain him a whole 3 FPS more than his current video card will he start to look at the numbers other than the price and decide that it's time to learn the what, wheres and whys of the box sitting under his desk.
I'm sure 30 years ago the same complaints were being filed down at your local garage about kids having cars and not being able to change their own oil.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Am I the only person who thought the title sounded like a pun on "Halloween" at first?
// Oops this is not Fark....
/// I don't care!
I'm looking forward to the third book in the series, which will be totally unrelated to the first two, but will educate the reader on how to replace the nation's children with an army of robots.
/ Obscure
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
There's also Authoritas: One Student's Harvard Admissions and the Founding of the Facebook Era, which should be of interest to teens applying to college. It talks in depth about issues of privacy and computer security. The sources are available on-line.
Funny, they have an example of the "binary junk" that Microsoft Office documents are composed of... except the excerpt is from a .PNG file, a perfectly well documented and open format. pHYs is the physical dimensions chunk and IDAT is the data chunk, AFAIR.
Wow! Our teens are so illiterate they need a picture book to comprehend something.
All these are grammatically incorrect: semi unique, partially unique, rather unique, almost unique, nearly completely unique, halfway unique, uniquish, uniquey, ...
http://www.mckinnonsc.vic.edu.au/la/english/Grammar/index.htm
"Superlatives cannot be qualified. Something is 'unique' or it's not. It can't be the "most unique" or "quite unique." "
If you don't agree, and believe the word 'unique' means the same as the word 'rare', then pray tell what word do you use to mean a thing that is the only example of its type?
Environmentalism is the new Victorianism. Everyone ties on a green corset and pretends we're virtuous.
But I always feel weird when this happens, because unless I check thoroughly, the original material will end up being the same thing. And I'm too lazy to check :(
but it's always a neat feeling when you see a phrase (or a book title) and feel like a world suddenly opened up where only you can see it.
Since most of them are on teh intertubes these days, you'd expect that the average level of know-how is much lower than back in the days when only scientists and 1337 folks were online. /. seem to be old farts (like me, cough cough) these days.
That doesn't preclude the existence of some that are knowledgeable of course. But I sometimes wonder why it is that the majority on
Maybe today 1337 is to know HTML and Excel formulas?
thegodmovie.com - watch it
I thought the project sounded quite interesting, but then I clicked to read more and saw this:
1. Excessive time spent by young people playing computer games on the internet.
2. Young people committing digital crimes on the internet.
3. A lack of professionals who work with networks and computer security.
Sorry, but it's failed already. Approaching the problem by suggesting teens favourite pasttime is somehow wrong and a problem is idiotic to say the least, it stinks of an arrogant older generation having a problem with "kids today". I'd argue point 2 is rather interesting too, could it possibly be hinting at the download of MP3s, movies and the like?
Before the internet kids used to just watch TV all the time, I'm sure many decades ago they used to go out, and judging from stories I've heard from older folks they did and they used to fire catapults and play cricket, regularly breaking people's windows and the likes in the process. Kids who aren't sat at home doing something nowadays are all too often out on the streets with no parental supervision, plenty of alcohol and a nice bit of vandalism.
Yet somehow kids spending a lot of time playing online games is somehow a problem? At least with something like WoW you're socialising in a way that causes no trouble to anyone else outside the context of the game.
If they want to convince kids to look towards a career in IT security then a better approach would be to integrate what kids enjoy, not fight it. Explain where exploits come from for games, how they're developed, how they can be protected against. Explain why having your account hacked or leaked by the game provider is a bad thing and a severe privacy breach don't approach the topic telling kids how bad they are and how the things they do are wrong in the eyes of the author.
You're not going to engage kids unless you work with them, work against them and they'll ignore you and you'll fail, spectacularly.
I've got a third reason: They are sick of having their favorite software not be supported when the new version of their OS comes out.
I won't deny that it happens in Linux, too, but I've seen a lot more niche software just go belly-up when a new OS comes out than Open Source software. And at least the OS software, a user can fix it if the original developer doesn't want to.
In fact, I had something like this happen not too long ago with a fractal generator... There was a new version for Linux of it, but no Windows version. My friend has an irrational hatred of Linux and wanted the Windows version. So I set up the compile environment and compiled the new one for Windows. For a closed-source program, this just wouldn't have been possible.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Sounds like a rather balanced viewpoint to me...
I don't really drink much. There's been beer and pot and ecstasy at the parties I've been going to since I was 14, but I hated smoking (though I'm quite partial to a hash brownie every now and again), ecstasy took too long -- who's got a whole weekend to get high and come down -- and beer, well, it was all right, but I didn't see what the big deal was.
"a graphic novel being published by O'Reilly"
O RLY
=D
not every driver wants to become a mechanic.
if the geek were honest he would probably admit that he spends most of his time rather far removed from the internals of the machine himself.
not every driver wants to become a mechanic
In this case he acts like he's already a mechanic. That's the difference.
Don't get me wrong, I don't spit on power users who don't know what kind of RAM is in their laptops. But when they come to me and ask about a possible upgrade and I give them the plain truth and they turn around and go against it to the point of being technically incorrect and roll their eyes when they know they're wrong? That's what burns my ass and that's exactly what he does. He wants to put exactly what he wants into his system but when I tell him that what he's looking at buying won't work in his system or won't accomplish what he thinks it will he sports an attitude. The attitude isn't as much that I'm wrong, it's that he thinks he's more right with no basis and no clear understanding of the first thing he's talking about.
Granted, he is a kid but there are plenty of 16 year olds who know that there are various forms of memory and have the wits about them to find out which one they need for their system. He's not one of them.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.