Week 8

Week 8 lecture content focused on virtual philosophy and the idea of questioning what exactly is real and whether what we can sense is actually what is around us or just the creation of our minds. Personally I always viewed the people who saw the world this way as kind of nutjobs but the lecture managed to rationalise things a bit more reasonably. In paticular I found Plato's 'men in the cave' idea interesting as it showed that people had been thinking along these lines for quite some time.

For the tutespark task I chose the cyber punk theme

Ubiquitous Access to information: Cyberpunk often deals with the continual spread and access to information. Hacker themes and ever-connecting internets are common. Additionally, the connection of humans to this omnipresent information stream leads to the blurring of the virtual with the real

And the piece of fiction I chose was the cyber-punk anime Ghost in the shell Stand-alone-complex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell:_Stand_Alone_Complex, which is about a future in which many human beings have fused with machines and it focuses on themes of what makes someone truly human. But also a main focus is that if mankind did infuse everything with machines then would that allow hackers far greater potential to commit crimes. I also found this news story relating to cyber crime. http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/Cyber+crime+target+social+networks+utilities+Report/3637239/story.html (accessed 8th October 2010)

With the world constantly becoming more and more connected to technology we have seen the advent of cyber crime and the more technology crosses into everyday life the greater the potential for the crimes that can be commited. For example studies conducted at Georgia Tech University has reported that soon the ability for cyber hackers to affect physical entities such as hospitals will be a very real problem.

This could lead to undoubtably horrific consequences and if the ability to commit these crimes is available to any petty hackers then we could see groups and orgnaisations arise for the sole purpose of commiting cyber terrorism and even leading the entire world into ruin once it becomes connected enough. This whole situation would make cyber-punk fiction such as Ghost In The Shell Stand Alone Complex eerily prophetic as we see a new breed of terrorist arise with a far greater ability to cause damage and even on a global scale.

While it would be counter-productive to halt the progress of technology the solution to this problem simply to make sure with increased technological assymilation we have to greatly increase the security measures protecting it lest we all end up in a dynastopian future as predicted by Ghost in the Shell.