节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2012-09-25
难易度:High
关键字:disturbance, tactic, perceive, interpretation, sit-in, disturbed
denial-of-service [DDoS]
Welcome back, everybody.
So friends, knowing what you know so far, how do you feel about hacktivists?
Do you think what they're trying to achieve is good?
Do you think the way they go about reaching their goals is good?
Log on to our Studio Classroom website, head to our English Corner and chime in
with your opinion.
Before you do that, though, let's look at a few more famous examples of
hacktivism on line 3.
Hacktivism.
When the U.S. Department of Justice shut down megaupload.com last January,
Anonymous perceived the move as a threat to Internet freedom.
They responded by launching an attack that shut down the Department of Justice
site as well as several music industry sites.
Hacktivist group Telecomix uses its technical abilities to help people build
emergency communication networks.
During last year's protests against former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak,
Telecomix helped protesters communicate with each other after high-speed
Internet services were shut down.
Whether hacktivists should be considered heroes or troublemakers is open to
interpretation.
The only thing for sure is that people with passion and skill will attempt to
keep the World Wide Web open and free.
Hacktivism is the modern way of letting your voice be heard on the Internet.
We've seen different ways that hacktivism groups do this by doing virtual
sit-ins,
and by creating links that people participate in to overwhelm a computer till
the whole system will shut down.
But oftentimes a lot of people think in order to make their voice heard, they
have to cause a lot of trouble.
And that can be very bothersome for many people, including you.
That's right.
These disturbances can be bothersome.
So what is the government trying to do to stop it?
Well, we saw that hacktivists first started bothering the U.S. government in a
major way when the U.S. Department of Justice shut down megaupload.com.
OK. So "megaupload" was a big deal when they shut that down just last January.
Megaupload.com was a website where you can upload information.
Now often people will put movies or music or TV shows on there.
And that's not actually legal.
So the U.S. Department of Justice shut it down.
And Anonymous was not happy.
No. They perceived that action as a threat to Internet freedom.
They thought, well, people should be able to put whatever they want on the
Internet.
And so when the government shut it down, they perceived it as a threat.
Now to "perceive" means for something to come out as a belief or as an opinion.
So it's what they thought about it, how they viewed it.
And they viewed it as shutting down Internet freedom, which is what Anonymous is
actually fighting for.
OK. They thought it was a threat, something that could be dangerous.
And they responded by launching an attack that shut down the Department of
Justice site as well as several music industry sites.
This was a huge deal.
This had never been done before.
But it was a big... big in the news, which is one of the tactics that
hacktivists use.
They want to draw media attention to certain areas, and this definitely did.
OK. So they saw the government shutting down a different website, so they shut
down the government website.
But they also shut down some music industry sites.
The music industry is overall the group of people who create and sell music.
Why would they try to set down... shut down their websites, Kaylah?
Well, the music industry groups had asked the U.S. Department of Justice to help
shut down... megaupload.com because of all the illegal music that was being
shared on that.
So they were working together.
So Anonymous attacked the two groups that had shut down their Internet freedom.
OK. So the hacker... or the hacktivists were upset that the music industry just
wanted money.
Well, hacktivist group Telecomix uses its... its technical abilities to help
people build emergency communication networks.
So this group is actually helping build and create something on the Internet.
Now for an emergency, there... there always needs to be some way of
communicating.
And in today's technology, using the Internet would be a great way to do that
because so many of us have smartphones with the Internet in our pockets.
All right.
So these communication networks are designed for people to be able to talk to
each other during an emergency.
And we'll see how the hacktivists use these in a little bit.
Well, during last year's protests against former Egyptian President Hosni
Mubarak, Telecomix helped protesters communicate with each other.
OK. And of course, protesters are people who are also activists.
They want their voices to be heard.
And they need to be able to communicate with each other especially when they are
hacktivists.
And they especially need to do that when they shut down high-speed Internet
services.
So in Egypt, the government shut down the "high-speed" Internet.
That means they're able to reach it quickly.
It doesn't take a long time to load.
Now these protesters were using it to communicate, so the government shut it
down.
Well, Telecomix decided that that was going against Internet freedom and helped
these protesters communicate by creating a communication network for them.
And that way, they were able to continue protesting against that President which
they didn't like.
Now it doesn't necessarily mean that all the members of Telecomix agreed with
the protest.
Instead they are using their voice to help freedom on the Internet.
So they don't always have to agree with exactly what's being protested.
Instead, they're keeping to what they believe.
That's right.
Now friends, whether hacktivists should be considered heroes or troublemakers is
open to interpretation.
Now "interpretation" is an explanation or an opinion of what something is.
Often if you're listening to someone speak another language, you have to listen
to the interpretation to understand it.
OK. So maybe you're not sure that whether they are heroes or whether they are
just troublemakers.
The only thing for sure is that people with passion and skill will attempt to
keep the World Wide Web open and free.
That's right.
So are they good or bad?
That's kind of up for you to decide.
What are your thoughts on hacktivism?
Write to us at letters@StudioClassroom.com.
Or find us on Facebook and tell us what you think about hacktivism and their
goal of keeping the Internet open and free.
OK. Thank you so much for joining us, friends.
Now let's go visit the Chat Room.
(Music).
So have you started reading that novel your cousin wrote?
Yes. And I'm really enjoying it, Ken.
I didn't know that she was such a good writer.
That's great.
What's the story about?
The hero is a teenage boy whose family moves from India to the U.S.
The book tells about his experiences in the new culture.
That sounds really interesting.
But I thought a hero was someone who had done something courageous or someone
who had been very successful.
How does a teenage boy count as a hero?
I'm using a different meaning of the word hero - the main character of a story.
Oh. So a hero can be someone who does something great, or it can just be a main
character?
That's right.
But if the main character of a book is a woman, you'd usually call her a
heroine.
I had a question about that word.
I hear women who do great things called heroines.
But sometimes it seems like they're just called heroes.
That's true.
If you're talking about a group of people, you'll use the word "hero" even if
there are women in the group.
And if you're talking about just one woman, you can use the word "hero" if her
gender doesn't affect what she is known for.
So "hero" includes both men and women, but "heroine" is only for women?
That's right.
What about calling someone your hero?
What does that mean?
That means someone you really admire.
It could be a brave, noble person, a famous person like an athlete or a
musician, or even someone you know personally like a family member.
I see. So it's a person you think of as a hero.
That's right.
Well, I hope you enjoy the rest of the novel.
If it gets published, I'll definitely want to read about it and find out more
about its young hero.
OK, Ken. I'll keep you posted.
(Chinese).
(Chinese).
And I guess that's all the time we have for today.
I'll see you soon.
Bye-bye.
So hacktivists are people who actively use their technical skills to promote
their agendas over the Internet.
Some hacktivists think that all cyber protests should be peaceful, like the
virtual sit-in, when protesting and promoting causes.
Then again, there are hacktivists who think that the ends justify the means,
that doing mean and cruel things like defacing websites and destroying
businesses is OK so long as their goals are being achieved.
All right, friends.
Tomorrow we're going to shout: I can see the light!
We'll see you all of you then.
Have a great day.