"Why do hackers hack?", asked Ajay, and it sent me into a detour ...
"Looking in a hacker's mind, you have to be open to the social aspects behind the way they think. Often portrayed as loners, hackers can be socially involved and fit into what is considered 'normal' everyday lives.There appears to be a commonality of 'power' for hackers. The solving of 'puzzles' and the 'see what I can do' attitude is most apparent. By talking to 'wannabees' and individuals who have hacked, the 'power' of finding exploits and 'showing' the 'bigger' entity how they are not secure is the most outstanding trait we will find in these people.
There doesn't appear to be a criminological theory or 'true' understanding 'why' they hack. The motivation of hackers will always be a mystery. Hackers usually use social engineering to gain most of theirknowledge. Social Engineering is the act of getting someone to tell you about sensitive information through trust. This unadulterated trust becomes a weakness for most." This what I read on the net ....
I was in the IT circuit once upon a time ... A hacker in those days was different from now. S/he was a person who hacked for an ideology - it was defiance, it was a sheer enjoyment of knowledge and skills and seeing how far it goes, it was a lot of unadulterated mischief, a lot of times curiosity ... but no matter what the reason, one thing was common - a hacker was king (or queen), a whiz, a magician. It was also like being a 'underground' movement, a counterculture, an alternative to mainstream ... it was not mindlessly destructive.
But today the hacker is an Outcast, a Criminal.
I am not sure what moves this generation. Definitely, it has to do with power and control. Other than the obvious reasons of greed and money (when it is a crime), it sometimes could imply a wanting to have the power to "move" something. I do find that the current generation's ethics are very different from mine. There seems to be a more 'so what?!' and the boundaries between right and wrong seem to be very fuzzy and more easily permeable.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Monday, March 2, 2009
Wanted – New Architects; New Architecture
Change, progress, forward movement comes only with self-reflection – by oneself and/or as a community. What kinds of psychological spaces, formal and informal, exist for the architects community, to reflect upon itself? Christopher Alexander, http://www.patternlanguage.com/, has said it succinctly - “…The reasons behind the increasing irrelevance of architects are complex. There are many issues facing us, but one of the more simple ones is that we do not have, as a professional community, adequate platforms, forums, or vocabulary for debating our differences and exchanging information.”
Architects seem rather lonely. Especially to me, with a NGO background where every little thing gets discussed to death, not having adequate fora to discuss one’s relevance and place in society seems as though something important is missing. Architects seem trapped in their ivory towers, thinking they hold the answers to all problems. In fact, it might just be probably true. They do have solutions – to micro as well as the macro; to the social, political as well as technical. If only they could come out of their very own version of Stockholm Syndrome (The Conflict Inside; Matias Echanove and Rahul Srivastava; Indian Architect & Builder, january 2009) where they are in love their client and their dictates. Ranjit Hoskote’s sketch of the aspiring architect quite hit the nail on the head: “Many young people go to architecture school with a self-image of the architect drawn from the deplorable writings of Ayn Rand. In this version, the architect is seen as Epic Hero, a Romantic genius, a lonely Howard Roarkian challenger of history who is equally indifferent to the needs of others and to the currents of the time ”.
Is this what has happened? That the architectural education institutions have churned out symbolic, technical responses and clones of a historic and past glory rather than a thinking, reflecting community which can construct new societal responses? A tired, blasé, frustrated, incestuous community that satisfies itself with glories bygone? If we take off our eyes off the Parthenons and Pantheons, we might just be able to see the modern-day colossal mistakes, that neither integrate into the backgrounds nor reflect the common man’s lifestyles and needs. Is it easier to keep our eyes and attention and debates and discourses on the technical, design details than current and future socio-political realities, especially as it is impossible to really design in isolation and be removed from these realities? Does this kind of myopia imply a deep insecurity, a well understood inadequacy to respond as a community to socio-political trends? To innovate and bring fresh thinking not only in “structures” but also social structures? The problem is that even in technical responses, the innovations seem so few and far between.
What the architecture community (and also many other sectors) needs is to learn from the IT (information technology) community. It requires a movement within, a deep down explosion that can set off an internal revolution, that can set in motion processes that will result in spawning ideas and interventions that can become workable, can reach millions (and thus make millions too), and become user-friendly. Remember the computers of the 1980s? The cost, size and difficulties in using them? In just two decades, there has been a revolution and today we see gadgets that can fit into a palm of every Tom, Dick and Harry … including the local grocer and the business tycoons – and each fitting the socio-economic profile of the user. What was the magic formula that made it happen? The IT community is as exclusive and impenetrable as the architect community. So how did this professional sector re-invent itself and made itself an indispensable product in so short a time?
Agreed that architecture is art – but the difference is that the output of this art form is not ensconced in hallowed halls of the super-buyers or museums, but directly interacts with the rest of the society in everyday terms, even if it is built for only one client. The outputs of this art form bring about large scale change in the environment, influences social psychology, can engender long term communal responses while influencing the aesthetics and management of small and large scale spaces. Thus, it not only owes the rest of humankind, but more importantly, owes itself a relook at its role in the making of the world in the coming century, even if it is only as citizens of this world.
What this community requires is to relook at itself within the present context, check out its relevance, identify the gaps, enlarge its response canvas and create a way forward that will be responsive to next century. No one else can do it for them. Neither the client, nor the politico-legal paraphernalia that underlie the industry, nor the ‘aam janata’. It has to come from within. A dynamic re-defined, a language modernized, a system revitalized, a response ‘real’-ised by the thinkers of the industry.
It needs a Vox Populi of its own, that can bring to focus its own understandings, perceptions, and perspectives and propose solutions on current realities. A means that will break the self-imposed isolation and help it to mingle, co-operate and collaborate with the rest; that will not only bring much-needed, fresh solutions but also will help it to gain from the mutual support. It can choose to become a force that can influence change, dialogue as a sector with the powers-that-be, and bring forth its own vision of society rather than leave it to mundane and petty bureaucrats and contractors.
It might be difficult to make the old horses drink. However, it might be useful to introduce an ongoing self-reflection process which allows the more adventurous, the more curious and the more reflective to have an opportunity to do so. A self-reflection process that frequently evaluates itself in the context of micro to macro, allowing for re-positioning and an automatic rearrangement to the relevance required. A process that will enable this community to be where it ought to be, where it has been in the past – at the helm of making of new societies, envisioning and designing new landscapes, and being true Architects.
It is not as if alternative practice models have not emerged. Sure, there have many successful attempts by brilliant pathbreakers who have relocated themselves within the broader social processes of change, have put themselves directly in touch with not only the sites and their histories but also with the users and the workforce. They have made for themselves indispensable niches of being participants in the cultural processes of their times and have become agents of social, political and economic change. However, these have remained more as personal crusades, fulfilling personal destinies. Young professionals do look upto them and model themselves upon them. But what is more urgently required is to create avenues for changes in process designs which will help the future generations to examine and realign themselves to changing times and become change agents in their own right.
I am driven to write this, because in the last few years, I have interacted with some very interesting people - architects. I have heard them speak from their hearts, share their agonies, listened to their dreams; I have read what they have been in the past, and their slow but sure degeneration over the last few centuries. It pains to see a people who are meant to be protagonists in the drama of designing and generating societies, slowly sideline themselves to mere technicians, project managers, and sometimes contractors.
Architects seem rather lonely. Especially to me, with a NGO background where every little thing gets discussed to death, not having adequate fora to discuss one’s relevance and place in society seems as though something important is missing. Architects seem trapped in their ivory towers, thinking they hold the answers to all problems. In fact, it might just be probably true. They do have solutions – to micro as well as the macro; to the social, political as well as technical. If only they could come out of their very own version of Stockholm Syndrome (The Conflict Inside; Matias Echanove and Rahul Srivastava; Indian Architect & Builder, january 2009) where they are in love their client and their dictates. Ranjit Hoskote’s sketch of the aspiring architect quite hit the nail on the head: “Many young people go to architecture school with a self-image of the architect drawn from the deplorable writings of Ayn Rand. In this version, the architect is seen as Epic Hero, a Romantic genius, a lonely Howard Roarkian challenger of history who is equally indifferent to the needs of others and to the currents of the time ”.
Is this what has happened? That the architectural education institutions have churned out symbolic, technical responses and clones of a historic and past glory rather than a thinking, reflecting community which can construct new societal responses? A tired, blasé, frustrated, incestuous community that satisfies itself with glories bygone? If we take off our eyes off the Parthenons and Pantheons, we might just be able to see the modern-day colossal mistakes, that neither integrate into the backgrounds nor reflect the common man’s lifestyles and needs. Is it easier to keep our eyes and attention and debates and discourses on the technical, design details than current and future socio-political realities, especially as it is impossible to really design in isolation and be removed from these realities? Does this kind of myopia imply a deep insecurity, a well understood inadequacy to respond as a community to socio-political trends? To innovate and bring fresh thinking not only in “structures” but also social structures? The problem is that even in technical responses, the innovations seem so few and far between.
What the architecture community (and also many other sectors) needs is to learn from the IT (information technology) community. It requires a movement within, a deep down explosion that can set off an internal revolution, that can set in motion processes that will result in spawning ideas and interventions that can become workable, can reach millions (and thus make millions too), and become user-friendly. Remember the computers of the 1980s? The cost, size and difficulties in using them? In just two decades, there has been a revolution and today we see gadgets that can fit into a palm of every Tom, Dick and Harry … including the local grocer and the business tycoons – and each fitting the socio-economic profile of the user. What was the magic formula that made it happen? The IT community is as exclusive and impenetrable as the architect community. So how did this professional sector re-invent itself and made itself an indispensable product in so short a time?
Agreed that architecture is art – but the difference is that the output of this art form is not ensconced in hallowed halls of the super-buyers or museums, but directly interacts with the rest of the society in everyday terms, even if it is built for only one client. The outputs of this art form bring about large scale change in the environment, influences social psychology, can engender long term communal responses while influencing the aesthetics and management of small and large scale spaces. Thus, it not only owes the rest of humankind, but more importantly, owes itself a relook at its role in the making of the world in the coming century, even if it is only as citizens of this world.
What this community requires is to relook at itself within the present context, check out its relevance, identify the gaps, enlarge its response canvas and create a way forward that will be responsive to next century. No one else can do it for them. Neither the client, nor the politico-legal paraphernalia that underlie the industry, nor the ‘aam janata’. It has to come from within. A dynamic re-defined, a language modernized, a system revitalized, a response ‘real’-ised by the thinkers of the industry.
It needs a Vox Populi of its own, that can bring to focus its own understandings, perceptions, and perspectives and propose solutions on current realities. A means that will break the self-imposed isolation and help it to mingle, co-operate and collaborate with the rest; that will not only bring much-needed, fresh solutions but also will help it to gain from the mutual support. It can choose to become a force that can influence change, dialogue as a sector with the powers-that-be, and bring forth its own vision of society rather than leave it to mundane and petty bureaucrats and contractors.
It might be difficult to make the old horses drink. However, it might be useful to introduce an ongoing self-reflection process which allows the more adventurous, the more curious and the more reflective to have an opportunity to do so. A self-reflection process that frequently evaluates itself in the context of micro to macro, allowing for re-positioning and an automatic rearrangement to the relevance required. A process that will enable this community to be where it ought to be, where it has been in the past – at the helm of making of new societies, envisioning and designing new landscapes, and being true Architects.
It is not as if alternative practice models have not emerged. Sure, there have many successful attempts by brilliant pathbreakers who have relocated themselves within the broader social processes of change, have put themselves directly in touch with not only the sites and their histories but also with the users and the workforce. They have made for themselves indispensable niches of being participants in the cultural processes of their times and have become agents of social, political and economic change. However, these have remained more as personal crusades, fulfilling personal destinies. Young professionals do look upto them and model themselves upon them. But what is more urgently required is to create avenues for changes in process designs which will help the future generations to examine and realign themselves to changing times and become change agents in their own right.
I am driven to write this, because in the last few years, I have interacted with some very interesting people - architects. I have heard them speak from their hearts, share their agonies, listened to their dreams; I have read what they have been in the past, and their slow but sure degeneration over the last few centuries. It pains to see a people who are meant to be protagonists in the drama of designing and generating societies, slowly sideline themselves to mere technicians, project managers, and sometimes contractors.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Gated Communities or Sitting Ducks ?
The ‘gated communities’ response is such a direct antithesis to current trends and efforts to create inclusive societies, that one wonders at the response. It seems to me very much akin to the ‘flyover response’ – flyovers that fly over problems rather than solve them. Gated communities shut themselves inside, believing that the world begins and ends there, and wonder why social degeneration is happening and urban security risk is increasing.
We need to understand the genesis of Gated Communities. It has been a response of the ‘aggressors’ against the ‘natives’ – in Brazil, in South Africa, in Europe, in Israel, in parts of India, - evident is that the ‘encroacher’ needed to feel ‘safe’. The response has a certain mindset behind it, with an inbuilt streak of guilt of an occupier and fear of the resulting backlash from the ‘victims’.
Can such design responses in a historically critical context become a mainstream design response? The basis of many of the current problems have been precisely that – a mainstreaming of short-term, very contextual responses – whether be it Gated Communities or Urban slums. Can a response that might have seemed relevant to a South African white man in an Apartheid situation where he should well been afraid of a black repurcussion, possibly be a relevant design response in Urban India in its Mumbais and Delhis? Yet that is what we see. And while walls around cities, world over are coming down, we are happily putting walls around communities.
Over time what will happen to us in India, will be what has happened to the West. We will keep out the ‘social trash’ – the doodhwalas, the maid servants, the vegetable vendors, the newspaperwalas, the service and maintenance guys – make it so difficult for them to exist within accessible environs, that in the long run, these poorer communities will find employment elsewhere and will eventually leave these Gated Communities to their devices. And like in the West, we will slowly find ourselves having to wash our own dishes and clothes, sweep our homes, repair our plumbing, etc.etc.etc. We might also begin feeling a false sense of security. False, because Gated Communities, isolated and not networked, will be much more vulnerable to people who might want to take potshots at them. It is much easier after all to target a fortress than a neighbourhood. And it has been shown time and again that any security that can be put in place can also be equally undone.
And then when the discrimination, alienation and separation is complete, and social outrages and rages build up, we shall cry out in panic at the backlashes we face and we will wonder why our designs are not working.
Who can be held responsible for mainstreaming these kinds of anomalies? What kind of reflection process does the designer go through before proposing a design? What kind of help, support and alternative viewpoints are considered to understand various dimensions especially in construction of societies? How are the ecological, economics, politics, social impacts, psychological long term repercussions of what is proposed evaluated? What kind of consultations happen or opinions taken before we take up what will eventually lead to social engineering?
Can the architect throw up his/ her hands and believe that s/he is not responsible for cities – that they after all only build buildings and not cities. And they are not just buildings after all – they are collections of buildings that become neighbourhoods, collection of neighbourhoods that eventually become cities.
Does the architect has no control over his/her decisions? Are they becoming blas̩ and giving up and withdrawing into individual shells for the next fantastic project. What stops them from becoming a pro-active community that is able to put its imagination and head together and influence change? They do have solutions Рand saying that 99% of the structures are anyway built without architects is just a cop out. If they influenced 99% of what they DO build, it might be the vehicle of change that is needed.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Climate Change - Opportunities to Change
With urban areas becoming more and more vulnerable, migration will not be a long-term solution. In fact, it might become a bigger problem. People will be forced to come back to the rural areas. In this scenario of urban crisis, a self-sufficient rural economy will be the best solution in the long run. The rural economy has already undergone a drastic change – from a nomadic, barter system it has changed to a cash-driven, settled lifestyle bringing with it all the socio-politico-economic ramifications. The rural economy of the future will have to adapt to this changed reality, yet be rooted in the older, more sustaining strategies and forms of running itself.
Shifts in education also will have to be made. One of key factors in loss of traditional crafts and skills and thus local self-sufficiency has been education. An educated youth prefers a job in the city to practicing crafts. But over time education can bring about the required change to the rural economy. Instead of driving youth away from traditional skills, it could empower them to dynamize and modernize the local skills and set up local industries based on these skills.
True, it might not be possible or even practical to go back to a barter economy. But local economics will have to change. A system which is locally rooted, and which relies on local practices rather than control it, can help bring control back in people’s hands.It will be very important in the long-run, if we are to make the rural economy self-sustainable, for it to depend on local markets. An economy that generates and caters to local demand thus fostering local market will bring local growth and will be the answer. Instead of further creating large, unsustainable, urban centres with large ecological footprints, it might be useful to promote smaller, local, centres with urban advantages but with small ecological footprints.
Similarly social and communal identities and religions will have to undergo change. Communities are important to provide the basic framework to which an individual can relate with and identify with. However the definition of communities themselves will have change. It might be important to define ourselves not just by religion, region, language – we will have to integrate core values, forms of lifestyle, and means of making a living and growth also parts of the communal identity. (The ‘untouchables’, then will be the ‘exploitative’ means of growth, while a sustainable lifestyle can ensure one to become a ‘Brahmin’ - the original caste system which defined one by the work one did and laid out the rules and ethics within that frame).
Climate change promises to bring in new ways of thinking. It will not be enough to just ‘improve’ or ‘better’ old/ current systems by adding ingredients of ecological sensitivity, or low-carbon economy. It will have to be rooted in new politics, new economics, and new socio-cultural interactions and most importantly new values. The new-ness will have to based on the ‘movement’ that already taken place (we cannot go back to the past), but have its learnings from the old, traditional systems and values. It will have to intelligently combine social equity and justice with the personal need and ambition for growth. The newness might have to come from re-defining ownership, power, richness. It might be necessary to label exploitative and unsustainable forms of lifestyle as ‘poverty’ and a socially sustainable format as ‘power’, ‘security’, etc.
It is not enough to look at or change current policies, though it will have to begin here, of course. But if we are to survive, in the long run, formats of governance will have to undergo change. It might be necessary to shift from the dream of ‘global power’ to ‘local power’. Or at the least, the meanings of these phrases might have to be understood differently. Global politics, global power that are here to stay will have a role to play – but it will have to be more to moderate and ensure a level playing grounds, while the actual control, systems and formats of governance and growth will have to be left to local level.
It will need not just a socio-politico-economic change but also a deeply psychological change. (I would like to call it a psycho-spiritual change)
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
On Habitat Planning
UNDP, during post-tsunami reconstruction, was proposing to develop "Habitat Development" guidelines. Some of the guys even toyed with the idea that we could participate in the process. It led to some ruminations ....
Habitats happen. Habitats develop - over time, over years, over decades. They are developed by the people who inhabit these habitats – they add, modify, take away, build, renovate, restore as per the needs that are felt in a given context, in a given time. It is hence not necessary that a response that was appropriate in a given time, in a given context, with a given community will be appropriate in another time and another context, with another community.
Hence, habitat development is a contradiction. For it cannot be "developed" or "created" at one shot, as a response in reconstruction.
However, a habitat development approach can be taken up. It would mean that the response is appropriate in the given time and in the given context with an eye for future expansions and modifications. (and hopefully with learnings from the past).
Habitat approach can only be a holistic response – a response that comes about when there is a deeper, greater understanding of the environs of the habitation – the land, its undulation, the water resources, the vegetation, the peoples, the lifestyles and patterns, the relationships between humans and humans, between humans and the environment, between humans and animals.
Are there givens in such a circumstances ? Can we say that response X, Y, Z is needed to make the habitat most suitable ?
How does one establish guidelines under such circumstances ?
Habitats happen. Habitats develop - over time, over years, over decades. They are developed by the people who inhabit these habitats – they add, modify, take away, build, renovate, restore as per the needs that are felt in a given context, in a given time. It is hence not necessary that a response that was appropriate in a given time, in a given context, with a given community will be appropriate in another time and another context, with another community.
Hence, habitat development is a contradiction. For it cannot be "developed" or "created" at one shot, as a response in reconstruction.
However, a habitat development approach can be taken up. It would mean that the response is appropriate in the given time and in the given context with an eye for future expansions and modifications. (and hopefully with learnings from the past).
Habitat approach can only be a holistic response – a response that comes about when there is a deeper, greater understanding of the environs of the habitation – the land, its undulation, the water resources, the vegetation, the peoples, the lifestyles and patterns, the relationships between humans and humans, between humans and the environment, between humans and animals.
Are there givens in such a circumstances ? Can we say that response X, Y, Z is needed to make the habitat most suitable ?
How does one establish guidelines under such circumstances ?
The Butterfly Effect
Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas ?
- Philip Merilees
The above phrase refers to the Butterfly Effect – a phenomenon whereby a very insignificant change in a complex system can significantly alter an anticipated course of events. It refers to the idea that a butterfly’s wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that may ultimately alter the path of a tornado or delay, accelerate or even prevent the occurrence of a tornado in a certain location. The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale alterations of events.
This term could very well refer to the Climate Change crisis that the world faces, where a small event in the Arctic Circle, like a breaking of a ice shelf, can lead to a series of unconnected events that could eventually sink a small island in Southern Pacific Ocean.
Climate change is an issue that has unified the world like no other… It has converged economic, social, environmental, political, gender, equity, and all other such concerns into one overarching concern – the well being of our planet. It has converged on the same platform, countries, communities and sectors that otherwise would not even see eye to eye, let alone work together. It has made the concern of an Eskimo living on the Arctic Shelf, the concern of the person living in the equatorial forests of Papua New Guinea.
The reverse also holds true. For if we are to reverse or slow down the process of Climate Change, it can only happen through tens of thousands of small and large initiatives the world over. It would require the flapping of a million butterfly wings to stop the climatic extremes that we are on the verge of facing.
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Edward Norton Lorenz (May 23, 1917 – April 16, 2008) was an American mathematician and meteorologist, and a pioneer of chaos theory. He discovered the strange attractor notion and coined the term butterfly effect.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Reconstruction Education
What does architecture mean in reconstruction ? Oor what is reconstruction architecture ? Is there some special sensitivity/ education/ exposure required to build in post-disaster situations ? Only architecture does not seem sufficient. With a history of a variety, scale and magnitude of disasters what has been the architectural response to rebuilding ? (unfortunately i found only software architecture or rebuilding of monuments and big buildings when i was looking for info on it).
Similarly what does education mean in conflict/ disaster times ? School and all its trappings mean nothing when lives are on line. Alternatively how does one record/ document the real-life-education gained during such situations ?
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