COMPUTER

The term hacker has a double meaning within the field of computing. A hacker can be an expert computer programmer who creates complex software and hardware. These hackers are experts in the field of computing and have achieved a certain elite status within their field. The other commonly known meaning of the word is someone who breaks into computer security networks for his own purpose.

The media has perpetuated the more exciting connotation of the word hacker with films and books on the subject. Films such as War Games portray breaking into the Pentagon’s security system as similar to playing a computer game. A film about the computer hacker designing a software system would probably not do very big business at the box office.

A hacker who who breaks into systems primarily to steal is not regarded as a computer expert, although she can be. A hacker within the professional world of computing is regarded as a professional computer expert within his field. In the professional computing world, a hacker can be a computer and network security expert. She can also be a highly skilled software programmer or a hardware modifier. The type of hacker who breaks into bank accounts or a company’s network does exist, but the meaning is entirely different from that of a professional hacker.


The stereotypical image of a computer hacker, as portrayed by the media, is one of a shadowy figure, alone at a computer, stealing secrets and money. This type of computer hacking can bring rewards, but it can also bring huge fines and prison sentences. Thanks to the media, the average person is likely most familiar with this definition of a computer hacker.

It is true that computer crime is on the increase, but it mainly takes the form of computer fraud. People are duped into giving out their bank and personal details after receiving bogus emails. This is not computer hacking, as it does not involve an attempt to break into a computer’s software system.

It is not altogether difficult to gain access to someone’s email password. There are many Internet sites that claim to be able to gain access for a fee. However, these sites usually work by sending bogus emails asking the recipient to verify passwords for security reasons. This is not real computer hacking.

A real hacker in the field of computer security is someone employed to stop any unauthorized access to a network’s security system. If someone tells you that he is a computer hacker, it is not necessarily a bad thing. He may be able to help upgrade your computer instead of breaking into it

PROBLEM & SOLUTION

PROBLEM: Petroleum-filled plastic
SOLUTION: Make cases from corn
New bioplastics—plant-based polymers—require less oil and energy to produce than traditional plastics. One challenge: upping heat resistance so electronics won’t melt them. Fujitsu makes a laptop with a half-natural, half-conventional case and is now testing a castor-oil plastic that’s up to 80 percent bio-content.

PROBLEM: Landing in landfills
SOLUTION: Upgrade, don’t trash
The EPA estimates that Americans discard 19,000 tons of laptops a year. But soon it may get easier (and cheaper) to upgrade your laptop than to replace it, keeping e-waste out of dumps and saving the energy and materials needed for a whole new computer. Laptop-maker Asus recently released a model that lets users change the processor, graphics card and other parts just by removing one panel, instead of spending hours disassembling the computer.

PROBLEM: Power-sucking displays
SOLUTION: Create greener light
An LCD can eat more than half of a laptop’s power, mostly due to its fluorescent backlight. Some laptops are lit with more-efficient LEDs instead, but the next step may be to nix backlights altogether. Displays made of OLEDs, or organic light-emitting diodes, form images with electroluminescent films. In small sizes, as in cellphones, OLEDs can significantly cut power use (depending on the image’s colors); companies hope that this advantage will scale up.

PROBLEM: Guzzling power from the grid
SOLUTION: Harness the sun
Portable solar chargers suited for laptops already exist. A company called MSI Computer has even developed a prototype laptop with photovoltaic cells integrated directly into its case.

PROBLEM: Toxic waste
SOLUTION: Get the lead out
Concerned that dumped gadgets could leak poisons, the law is cracking down on dangerous ingredients. (The lead in solder, for example, is now being replaced by silver and copper.) Last year, the European Union enacted legal limits on toxins in electronics sold there, and the U.S. introduced a similar (though voluntary) rating system for computers. President Bush recently mandated that 95 percent of government-purchased electronics meet the American eco-standards, eliminating about 3,000 tons of hazardous waste by 2011.

PROBLEM: Tricky recycling
SOLUTION: Make a digital parts list
Recycling computers can be expensive and time-consuming. Dismantlers usually pull out valuable parts for reuse or resale, but they have to examine each computer individually to determine what’s in it. If manufacturers add a radio-frequency ID tag to a laptop, says Valerie Thomas of Georgia Tech, it could instantly tell recyclers how to recover components.

PROBLEM: That spinning hard drive
SOLUTION: Switch to flash memory
Future laptops could knock 10 percent off their energy use just by replacing hard drives with solid-state, or flash, memory, which has no watt-hungry moving parts. Dell debuted a laptop with a 32-gigabyte solid-state drive this year. By 2012, manufacturer Samsung says, the drives may hold about 30 times as much data.

PROBLEM: Energy-intensive manufacturing
SOLUTION: Build more- efficient factories
Producing a laptop requires nearly as much energy as it will use over the rest of its life, but new plants may slash this consumption. One of the world’s greenest computer–chip factories could go online as early as 2009. The Texas Instruments plant in Richardson, Texas, will consume 20 percent less electricity and 35 percent less water, spit out 50 percent fewer nitrogen oxides—and cost 30 percent less to build—than TI’s previous plant. In one energy-saving measure, the plant uses the waste heat generated by its huge air conditioners to warm water for free, eliminating the need for four polluting gas boilers.