Hackerteen Volume 1: Internet Blackout 69
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.
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.
| 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! |
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.
Re:Little Brother (Score:4, Interesting)
Not to take anything away from Hackerteen (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps you'd be interested in Cory Doctorow's Little Brother [craphound.com]. [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. [publishersweekly.com]
Re:Are teens really that far behind on the tech si (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Quality of drawings (Score:3, Interesting)
But glancing at the cover, it seems to mix 3 different styles of anime...
I'm not sure how "animated" it is, but im hoping that it isnt all comic, I think it would be better if you had like 3 pages of comic/story, as sort of an introduction, and then a page (of 0mG all text) that goes into depth about the subject.
Personally, I don't really see this "going anywhere", I think it would make a better web-comic than a book/comic, plus is seems really "preachy"...
Oh please. (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:Worst idea ever... (Score:5, Interesting)
How the mighty have fallen if the course has to be named with some l337 speak crap to get anyone's attention.
Now, this might seem off topic, but I dare you to take any of those l337 h4X0rz and show them a line up of say 10 different hammers and ask them to tell you the names of each and what they are used for. The point? Calling all of them hammers or axes is like calling computer security 'ethical hacking'. If you are going to learn something about the field, fucking try to learn the real terminology at the beginning. sigh
An example of how bad this is getting is at:
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Topic:Ethical_Hacking [wikiversity.org] where they have an entire page that is bereft of both the phrase "computer security" and "network security" but they did use the word 'university'.
Yes, all plumbers are just plumbers, there are good ones and bad ones, but not white hat plumbers and black hat plumbers. Likewise we don't have black hat politicians. We just tend to call them criminals with political connections.
Yeah, mod me troll for being a grammar nazi or something. It's just irritating to see people take perfectly good language and terminology and flush it down the toilet for something that 'sounds' more hip. iFuck iThat!
Re:Are teens really that far behind on the tech si (Score:4, Interesting)
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.