Ajay Ohri has written two “introduction” posts on hacking:
How to learn to be a hacker easily
I thought “hacker/hacking” would be popular search terms.
“Hot” search terms this week: “Lebron James” 500,000+ searches (US), “Kate Upton” 50,000+ searches (US). (Shows what I know about “hot” search terms.)
What Ajay has created, as we all have at one time or another, is a collection of resources on a particular subject.
If you think of the infoverse as being an navigable body of information, Ajay has blazed a trail to particular locations that have information on a specific subject. More importantly, we can all follow that trail, which saves us time and effort.
Like a research/survey article in a technical journal, Ajay’s trail blazing suffers from two critical and related shortcomings:
First, we as human readers are the only ones who can take advantage of the branches and pointers in his trail. For example, when Ajay says:
The website 4chan is considered a meeting place to meet other hackers. The site can be visually shocking http://boards.4chan.org/b/
(http://www.decisionstats.com/how-to-learn-to-be-a-hacker-easily/)
Written as a prose narrative, it isn’t possible to discover 4chan and other hacker “meeting” sites. Not difficult for us, but then each one of us has to read the entire article for that pointer. I suppose this must be what Lars Marius means by “unstructured.” I stand corrected. (“visually shocking?” Only if you are really sensitive. Soft porn, profanity, juvenile humor.)
Second, where Ajay says:
Lena’s Reverse Engineering Tutorial-”Use Google.com for finding the Tutorial” (http://www.decisionstats.com/how-to-learn-hacking-part-2/)
I can’t add an extension, Reverse Engineering, a five-day course on reverse engineering.
Or, a warning that http://www.megaupload.com/?d=BDNJK4J8, displays:
Ajay’s trail stops where Ajay stopped.
I can write a separate document as a trail, but have no way to tie that trail to Ajay’s.
At least today, I would ask the design questions as:
- How do we blaze trails subject to machine-assisted navigation?
- How do we enable machine-assisted navigation across trails?
There are unspoken assumptions and questions in both of those formulations but it is the best I can do today.
Suggestions/comments?
PS: Someone may be watching the link that leads to the Megaupload warning. Just so you know.
PPS: Topic maps need a jingoistic logo for promotion.
Like a barracuda, wearing only a black beret, proxy drawing from the TMRM as a tatoo, a hint that its “target” is just in front of it.
Top: Topic Maps. Reading under the barracuda: “If you can map it, you can hit it….”