Thursday, October 13, 2005

Identity as a comodity

Our Identity is a big part of use, it makes us and lets us tell other people who we are. With Identy theft and also criminals changeing there identy so as not to be court. I started thinking about identity as a comodity.

In films I have watched criminals have differnet Id's for different jobs, countrys and even people they no. In cyber space we create an identy for our selves be it a true or fake one. Some of use create these identies purely for security reasons you dont want any tom dick or harry knowing ware you live. Other people create there identity so they can have a cover name, not be traced because they are undertaking dubius if not criminal activitys.

Hackers have an alias as is sean in films and the real world. These aliases can be androdgenus. After looking into sexuality in cyberspace I have found it to be a very whight male dominated place. For a female hacker to get on in this hard world she normaly takes on a male or androgenus name and also prentends to be one of the lads.

A good example of this representation is Trinity from the Matrix. In the scean when Neo meets Trinity, the legendary hacker responsible for braking the IRS dbase, for the first time in the bar after following the wight rabbit. He is shocked to find she is a woman. She is a talented hacker and the sterio types for a hacker is a whight male in his early teens to late twentys. Not a female.

I found a Forum that was discussing "Girl Hackers" there were some very intersting points made.

"I doubt most girls go about bragging about how they are hackers, they go about doing what they do, they kick ass, where as guys brag and show off." (Reaper 05-19-2005, 5:39pm )

This is a good point and if girls are changing there identiys so that they apear male they will not want to draw attention to them selves. Another positive point was made after the above quote.

"Whenever girls enter into an intellectual & male-dominated field, they garner a great deal of attention and (usually) respect. This is because, well, guys love girls, especially cool & smart ones. Girl chessplayers are also remarkably rare, and we guys love to see them." (The Mighty Eggplant 05-19-2005, 6:25pm)

This coment would lead to suggest that girls should be less worred about being a hacker and working in the cyber world how ever reading on though the forum you can see negativity towards females in the hacking world.

"Girls in the world of hackers have 2 out of 3 qualityes:
They're Sane
They're Single
They're Good Looking" (Osiris 05-09-2005, 10:32pm)

This quote posted by Osiris shows how female hackers are perseved in the real world. However when it comes to the big screen they are glamed and glist up to become "hot female hackers" They become a male fantasy as in the example of Trinity from the Matrix, an ass kicking, leather-cladd supper hacker played by one of Holywoods most atractive female actresses Carrie-Anne Moss.

Trinity has one big advantage over other female hacker representations in other films such as "Hackers" and "the net". Trinity has real life hacker credability all because she uses a reall life hacking tool in the Matrix sequal "Reloaded". Trinity uses a free and popular scanning tool called an Nmap, created by Fyodor. She uses this tool to reveal the exsistance of a vulnerablity in a computer she is targiteing. She later goes on to use a real -world loophole called a "SSH1 CRC32" to gain the highest level access to the target mashine.

This use of reall world hacking tools has make the cyber community bow down to the Wachowski Brothers. Unlike past films such as "Hackers" were reall life hackers and people with computer knowlage cringed at the unrealistic portrail of the internet and people who use it. The Matrix brings reality to our screens.

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