GOODTIMES HACKING? GOOD? BAD?
CLONING DOGS
By Eddie Song
By Andres Mah-Candelaria
I confess that I am a hacker. I hack games and also some online sites to cheat out surveys or crack a little annoying password for locked compressed folders. I know it is not right, but I do it for fun or to test if the download is fake. Hacking can be very serious when stealing credit cards, turning off lights, or hacking into the government to find secret information.
Did you know that you could clone dogs, but primarily in Korea? When your dog is cloned it will look like a twin but it doesn’t have the same personality. In the New York Times it said that the most difficult thing about cloning dogs is not telling them apart, but why they don’t look exactly alike. According to ABC News, to clone your dog you need about $100,000.
A hacker is a person who finds weaknesses in computer security and uses it to breach other information. Some people use the information to expose top secret government spying, such as Edward Snowden, who released the fact that the government can listen to all your calls, look at all your texts, and access your phone data. Some call him a hero but the government wants to arrest him for spying. Right now he is in Russia under political asylum.
On the website Wikipedia an article said that the first commercially cloned pet was a cat named Little Nicky. The owners of a dog named Missy cloned her multiple times for 2.3 million dollars. A lot of people think that cloning pets is bad because the dogs that help the cloned dog stay alive will be killed. When you clone dogs the surrogates are female dogs who are sent to dog farms to get killed or eaten. Other people say that cloning your pet is good thing because the new dog will be younger than the real dog and it will have a longer life. In The Guardian it said that a cloned dog will not behave the same way as the pet you cloned. When you clone dogs the clone may die soon because of abnormalities. A website which is against pet cloning said that there were many abnormalities for the clone. For example, a dog was supposed to be black and white and it was greenishyellow when it was supposed to be white.
Hackers can serve a good or bad purpose and each has a different name. “Black hats” steal information and violate computer security. A “white hat” hacker just tries to explore and have fun while looking at info. Most white hat hackers use hacking to strengthen their security. “Grey hat” hackers notify the security administrators that their security is weak and offer to strengthen it for a fee. One of the biggest recent trials of black hatters involved four Russian hackers who cracked into many major companies such as 7-Eleven, JCPenney, and various banks. They stole over 160 million credit card numbers. At a trial in New Jersey, one man was sentenced to 20 years in prison. An example of a white hat hacker is James Forshaw who went after a posted bounty and found security holes in the Windows 8.1 update. Microsoft paid him $100,000 which was the most Microsoft ever paid someone to find bugs. An example of a grey hat hacker incident was in June 2010, when computer experts known as Goatse Security exposed a flaw in AT&T security which allowed the email addresses of iPad users to be revealed. The group told AT&T but the FBI still investigated them. Sometimes hacking is part of international conflict. For example the Chinese government hacked the United States government to get information that could be used to disrupt the operation of critical infrastructure in the country. This included power plants, chemical factories, and air-traffic control systems. A more recent case occurred where five Chinese officers hacked into major companies for trade secrets. These secrets can lead to China gaining access to America’s plan to make money and giving them a business advantage. The future of hacking is even scarier. Experts say that in the future hackers may be able to get into your brain, change your DNA, and control objects in your house. Now that you know the seriousness of hacking you may be saying… BUT EDDIE, YOU HACK! BUT EDDIE, THEN YOU SHOULD BE IN JAIL! I am a white hat hacker. I don’t use information for maliciousness and I don’t hack into the government or other serious sites. Eddie is a 6th grade boy who goes to Walter Reed Middle School and is a self confessed white hat hacker. He was born in August 9, 2002 in Michigan. Eddie Song likes journalism because he can express his feelings and also have fun while typing/writing his article. The symbol of a good hacker is a white hat.
Andres Mah-Candelaria is nine years old and goes to Eagle Rock Elementary. He likes journalism because he gets to write articles about things.
VOLUME V, ISSUE VI
WHEN WILL FLYING CARS REPLACE REGULAR CARS? By Raeonnya Iverson Flying cars are already a reality, but maybe not the way you imagined. They don’t necessarily have polka dots or sleek propellers, like in Spy Kids or Henry Hugglemonster, and they’re more like small planes that you can drive. If you’re anything like my mom or dad, at a red light you might get frustrated and say, “How long is this going to be? I wish I had a flying car.” Even when they are available, it may be a long time before that simple solution is an option. First, there is extensive testing that needs to be done to make sure the car is safe, otherwise people are going to crash and get hurt. Safety is the most important thing. In the meantime, many cars are being imagined. There is a car made for helping people who have been in accidents. The car, the Urban Aeronautics X-Hawk, is being made to help people in trouble. The car flies to accidents and fires. It will be made to move around buildings and wires. Another company, Terrafugia, has made a flying car that looks like an airplane. Both cars look beautiful. Raeonnya Iverson is 10 years old and is in 4th grade and while she likes technology, right now she is really into “What Does the Fox Say.”
OPINION: CHEATING THE SYSTEM By Ivan Paz Xbox is a console that offers services to people, such as free games, Hulu, Netflix, and other entertainment services. The Xbox was created for entertainment, but many services must be paid for before you can use them by purchasing a membership. Why do we have to buy the membership when we can get these services for free elsewhere? Xbox Live Gold Membership gives access to services, but is it worth the annual membership fee? The Gold Membership offers online gaming access and gives you the privilege of buying entertainment that you may already pay for. With the Gold Membership you have to pay double so you can have access to the apps that are already included with the basic account. Other competi-
tive devices include the same apps, and more, which you can use for free. Should Xbox Live really make us pay for what other devices give for free? People have found ways to get Xbox Live for free by typing in codes found in other countries or embedded in games. While this sometimes breaks their Xbox agreements, people are tired of paying for services. Xbox should listen to the complaints of their customers and change before the customers switch to another console. Microsoft, the company that makes Xbox, is trying to make a profit off of entertainment services and doesn’t offer any benefit to its customers. Ivan Paz is 11 years old and goes to Gabriella Charter School.
VIDEOGAMES: TRAVELING BACK IN TIME By Joon Kim You probably know Minecraft, or you might have played Mario Kart two or ten times. Well, let’s travel back in time and take a look at the classics. You should know, first of all, that you had to play these games in arcades in malls, not consoles at your own home. They were not released in console form until later. If you’ve only played the new ones, then take a look at the old ones. So get ready and pack up, because we are now looking at the earliest video games ever made. Computer Space might be the very first game of all time, but most people think Pong is the first one. You control a spaceship that needs to avoid and destroy flying saucers. The arcade version came out in 1971. There was a debate about whether this game or Pong (which you will learn about later) is the very first game. There isn’t much to say about this, so let’s move on. Pong is a tennis game that was released in Atari version in 1972. It had two lines on each side that used a square as a ball. This was probably the most well known old game. Tetris is a puzzle game released in 1984, which involved using your brain to win. In order to accomplish
the game, you have to get the same colored blocks in a row. Pac-Man is a maze game where you go around eating strange pellets and cherries while avoiding ghosts. The only time when you get to eat them is when you eat the jumbo pellet. This game came out in 1980 and was made by Namco. Donkey Kong is an arcade game where Mario, who used to be named Jumpman, is trying to save Pauline, or by her old name, Lady, from Donkey Kong while jumping over barrels. Mario’s mustache was made because a mouth was too difficult to make. His cap was made because they couldn’t animate hair, and to see Mario’s hands moving, they added a colorful overall. This was on sale in 1981. Now you learned about the past video games, instead of playing your modern consoles, why don’t you go to the arcades to play Pac-Man or Pong? If you always wanted to travel back in time, then this is the way. Come on, do it! Joon Kim is a 4th grade boy. His favorite thing about 826LA is doing comics and weird horoscopes.