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Writing 03: Hackers on the Internet

Reflection

After a series of related readings, technical artifacts and videos from the lectures, you will be given the opportunity to reflect on the weekly topic by writing a few short responses to given prompts.

In this course, the reading responses are typically due by 5pm on Tuesdays of the following week they are assigned, after we have discussed the issues and explored the topics in class. This reflection is due on 3/24 at 5pm.

Note that the course staff are looking for your own thoughts on these topics. Writing in the first person, taking divergent viewpoints, and bringing in ideas from outside of class are encouraged, but you must rely on the readings and class materials primarily. Write as if you are targeting a public audience, but with scholarly rigor. Particularly insightful or convincingly contrarian statements might be shared with the entire class in lecture or in the course slack.

For this week, you are to consider the following questions related to the lectures Hacker Sociality (from before break), as well as  Smashing the Stack and Infrastructure for Exploitation (this week's material):

  1. Internet Relay Chat (IRC) was a precursor technology to more today's more familiar chat-based apps like Slack and Discord. What features of IRC are preserved in these apps? Why do you think those particular features have stood the test of time? Refer back to the reading by Söderberg and Maxigas to set the context.

  2. Back in the 1990s, technical information about computer science was not as accessible as it is today. There were very few digital resources on programming and networking, and virtually nothing outside of the hacker underground on computer security. Nothing like YouTube or Stack Overflow existed. Imagine that you were a hacker in that era. Where would you go to find technical information?

Grading

Each reflection should be between 1000 - 2000 words. It will be graded in terms of:
 

  • Does the reflection adequately address the prompt?

  • Does the reflection reference the readings and class discussions to support the writing?

  • Does the reflection exhibit thoughtfulness and creative expression?

  • Does the reflection utilize proper grammar and style?

  • Is the reflection an appropriate length?

Review the grading criteria in the rubric for this assignment.

Submission Instructions

  1. (For this first submission) Share a Google drive folder for this class with our TA Rex Stayer-Suprick (rstayers@nd.edu) and give him editor privileges. 

  2. Prepare a doc in that folder named using this convention: lastname_firstname_duedate. Example: LASTNAME_First-name_032426

  3. The TA will collect each assignment directly from your drive after it is due