朗文英语听说教程三(4)

horses and therefore have the money associated with these activities. The same's true of fashion goods associated with golfing and yachting. They all send out strong signals.

OK ... so let's quickly review. We've said that conspicuous consumption's a way of signaling how wealthy we are, what status we have, and clothing's one way we do this . . . it's one way we consume conspicuously. I've mentioned conspicuous addition, meaning people wear more clothes to show their status. And then we looked at conspicuous divi-sion, where people wear different outfits at different times of the day or for different activities. And then there was conspicuous multiplication, where people have many gar-ments of the same type. And then we considered conspicu-ous materials, in which people wear rare or expensive mate-rials to show wealth, followed by conspicuous wealth, where people wear high-priced materials such as gold and dia-monds, usually as accessories. And after that, we looked at conspicuous labeling, where garments are worn with their designer labels on the outside for everyone to see—not too subtle, but it works. It says something. And finally, we looked at conspicuous outrage—where clothing is used to attract negative attention, where the intent is to shock peo-ple—and associative consumption, where clothing is associ-ated with a celebrity or lifestyle.

So you see, fashion really is a vehicle for self-expression, for saying, \Can you match it?\All right everyone, let's take a break there and we'll start our seminar in fifteen minutes, OK? Unit 10 The Making of Genius

TEACHER: Hello, everyone. Today we'll, uh . . . begin our next unit, and the topic is one that I think you'll find inter-esting. One of the most noteworthy aspects of human beings is our remarkable ability to learn a wide variety of skills, and to learn some skills very well. I'm sure you'll agree that great athletes, musicians, and singers are often the objects of our respect and admiration, and one reason for this is that many of us believe these individuals are special, that is, we believe that they have special talents provided by their DNA. They are gifted. But do you think it is really true? Could you or I become another Mozart, another Einstein, or another Van Gogh? Today we'll look at this question by discussing expert performance, that is, performances that are at a world-class level. First, I'd like to focus on the importance of practice and some reasons why many scientists doubt that innate talent is particularly important in skill development. Second, we'll look at the contribution which innate talent might make, and finally, I'll try to tie these two ideas together by proposing that it's the interaction of practice and talent that produces great musicians, scientists, and so on.

OK, so let's begin . . . let's begin with the notion of prac-tice. First of all, let's consider the fact that there've been his-torical increases in performance in many areas, particularly in the past 1 to 200 years. For instance, Olympic records in many sports have been broken repeatedly, even in sports that've had few changes in equipment, such as running sports. How can we account for this? Well, if innate talent were a strongly limiting factor, we wouldn't expect such rapid improvements in world record performances, unless

you happen to believe that innate talent has increased in the past century. Of course, no one believes this to be the case. Instead, we believe that external factors, such as better training methods and better diets, have had an enormous effect. Now this phenomenon isn't just limited to athletics. We can find the same situation in the world of music. There are pieces of music that used to be thought of as being virtually unplayable. For instance, in the nineteenth century some people thought that the violinist Niccolo Paganini had magical powers because of the difficult techniques he had mastered. However, today many of his pieces are regularly played by adult and even by outstanding child musicians, so once again the general conclusion is that innate talent hasn't limited human performance to this point in history. If that's right, then it's reasonable to expect that better practice and training will allow skill levels to continue to rise. . . . Yeah? Do you have a question?

STUDENT: I have a comment. I mean, what you're saying makes sense to me because every year new world records are broken. I don't think we really know what our limitations are.

TEACHER: I agree. We're getting closer to human limitations every time a new world record is set, but you're right—we're not there yet. Now . . . um . . . another reason to believe that practice is extremely important is because general intelligence and memory abilities and specific—I mean, specific—abilities are not strongly related. I see a question.

STUDENT: Sorry to interrupt again, but I'm not sure what you mean by ''not strongly related.\

TEACHER: OK. Here's an example. World chess masters are intelligent, but they're not any more intelligent than many people who can't play chess at all. When world-class chess players have been tested for general memory skills, their memories are no better than many nonexperts, but when they're tested for their memory of board positions in chess, they have an extremely well-developed memory of chess board positions that they've seen in the past. This allows them to make decisions more rapidly and accurately than ordinary people.

STUDENT: OK, so experts have a ... a ... a kind of special-ized type of knowledge ... or a specialized memory. TEACHER: Well, specialized knowledge. In the case of chess, a major part of that specialized knowledge is their specialized memory for chess board positions. OK? And it all comes from enormous amounts of practice and experience in their area. Now a third point is that success is based on a variety of motivational, personality, and social factors. Important personality factors are…let's see …perseverance, or you might say patience in the face of failure, the ability to concentrate for long periods of time, self-confidence, optimism, …uh…competitiveness, a high energy level, and ... um ... the ability to control anxiety. Now related to

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this is the idea of social support. Remember that I just men-tioned the ability to concentrate for long periods of time. Well, research has shown that very few people have the abil-ity to practice intensely for long periods of time when they have no social support. An example might help here. We know that sustained support from an adult is needed for young musicians to become successful, because without a lot of support and encouragement, young people won't do the long hours of practice necessary to excel. In other words, parental support seems to come first, and this is followed by intense practice, which then sometimes results in great skill development.

Now I've mentioned that in order to become an exceptional performer in a complex skill like playing the violin, a person has to work hard for a long period of time. Now what do you think I might mean by that? Is a long period of time one year? Three years? Five years? What do you think? . . . Yes, Greg? STUDENT: Well, I would say a lot longer than five years. I've read about the lives of several famous musicians and athletes and writers, and . . . uh, I don't know, they have to practice maybe eight or ten years or so.

TEACHER: Ten years is the answer. The truth is that even the most talented people need to begin to study or practice before the age of six, and then put in more than ten years of intensive, high-quality practice. Let's look at the classic example of a genius, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Behind the original, creative music that he wrote was years of hard work. Mozart practiced intensely. He wrote his first seven works for the piano and orchestra when he was between the ages of eleven and sixteen. Now that's impressive, but they were actually arrangements of works by other composers, so his early works were a kind of practice, not creative or original. Mozart didn't produce an original masterpiece for piano and orchestra until he was twenty-one. But think about that. By the time he was twenty-one, he had been playing music for sixteen years and had been writing music for piano and orchestra for ten years—so even in Mozart's case, a long period of practice preceded his works of creative genius. All right. So far I've suggested that three things are neces-sary to become great: practice, strong personal characteris-tics such as self-confidence, and strong social support. But let's consider another factor—innate talent. This is the idea that our genetic qualities are important, that we inherit talent from our parents. Right away, I'd like to point out that the effects of innate talent are extremely difficult to measure and separate from environmental factors. Even in cases in which young children are very skilled, it's not clear that innate talent is the main cause, because researchers have almost always discovered that the child's parents had created a powerful supportive environment for the child from infancy, so social support and encouragement probably played important roles.

Now something that may surprise you is that most people who become highly skilled as adults don't show signs of greatness when they're young children. In one study, a researcher looked at twenty-one Americans who were

beginning careers as concert pianists. Generally, the signs of special skill followed a combination of good opportunities and strong encouragement from parents and teachers. Signs of greatness couldn't be seen until they had practiced intensely for at least six years. The same results were found for professional tennis players in Germany, and that's a country that has produced top players such as Steffi Graf. Signs of innate talent usually only come out after long-term parental encouragement and a considerable amount of training.

Notwithstanding the difficulties involved with trying to detect innate talent, many child psychologists believe that some children are born with talent that allows them to learn specific skills very rapidly. An example of a skill that can clearly be inherited is working memory capacity, that is, a person's ability to process and hold information in the memory when solving problems. This type of ability seems to be important in young people who are especially good at mathematics. In addition, some degree of general intelli-gence, such as the capacity to analyze problems, is clearly inherited. So some aspects of intelligence do seem to be innate.

Now, another way in which innate talents may play a role is related to what I said earlier about personality factors such as self-confidence, persistence, and competitiveness. Many researchers believe that these qualities are at least partially innate. For instance, some children seem to have a natural ability to concentrate intensely for long periods. Others seem to be naturally daring and confident. Some seem to be born with the physical, mental, and emotional energy necessary to achieve greatness. That may be a fundamental part of innate talent.

A further point is that most researchers have partly defined innate ability as the ability for someone to perform a skill well before getting the opportunity for much practice. For example, now if you find that a child is good at playing the piano right away, without any practice, you might assume that the child has innate skills. However, this may not be the case. What we should perhaps be looking at in young people is not great ability when they begin their training, but rather ease of learning. Ease of learning may be the most important sign that a child is gifted. I'm sure you noticed in school that some children seemed to learn to play a sport, play a musical instrument, or do mathematics more easily than others. It seems reasonable that this is a sign of innate talent.

OK, to summarize, what does all this mean? Well, it looks like becoming great at something involves a fairly pre-dictable process. First, the person is born with certain per-sonality characteristics. These characteristics are then prob-ably nurtured by the child's parents. Next, when the child begins to show interest in some area, the parents react supportively—that is, they encourage and perhaps even push the child to work hard and to practice intensively. Then the child goes on to achieve increasingly higher levels of skill. As the child becomes more skilled, he or she becomes more motivated to excel, and parents and teachers provide support. This can result in a long-term commitment to practice. Finally, if the child continues to work hard for around

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ten years, he or she will probably become very highly skilled in the area chosen.

Now I'd like to remind you that scientific research rarely allows us to understand how to separate genetic and exter-nal factors in human learning. What I'd like to suggest, though, is that these two accounts of skill development are not incompatible. To quote a line on page 343 of your text-book: \ties and opportunities for engaging in intense training result in high levels of performance.\the situation quite accurately.

In closing, I'd like to ask you a final question. Were the works of Mozart brought into this world only through prac-tice and study? Can anyone make the scientific break-throughs of Einstein or play basketball like Michael Jordan if they work hard enough? In my opinion, they cannot. Innate talent is also needed, but we just haven't learned how to measure it yet. All right, now I'd like you to get into groups. Look at page 349, and there ...

make people human regardless of culture. Now think about it. Many of us in this room have, I'm sure, traveled to pans of the world our parents or grandparents never dreamed of visiting. And, as a consequence of air travel, commercial links, overseas businesses, and so on have become far easier to establish, so now goods, technologies, and fads are enter-ing new markets faster than ever before. Can anybody think of a good example of something—say, a technology or fad—that's spread quickly?

STUDENT: How about cell phones? Everybody's got them now.

TEACHER: Great example, Adam. OK, Let's take the cell phone for instance. You could go to any country in the world today, developed or otherwise, and I'd bet you could find a cell phone. You might have to search a bit, but I'm sure you could find one. Yet these haven't been around very long, relatively speaking, right? Same with computers. That's to say, because people from diverse cultures are able to interact today in a way they never could before, commodities, ideas, and attitudes all get disseminated with unprecedented speed. The latest fads—whether we're talking about electronic technology, clothing, perfume, fast foods, whatever—they now frequently become not just national but international, global phenomena.

That's one influence, air travel. Now another and maybe equally important influence has been the communications industries . . . um . . . which . . . and I'm going to include the Internet in that category, along with the media —TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, and film. We can't really discuss the subject of a global culture without considering the powerful influence of these things. Today, as we all know, film and television are multimillion, even billion-dollar industries. 'Films, documentaries, news and current affairs programs, quiz shows, even soap operas are usually made in the hope that they'll be bought and shown around the world. As a case in point, take shows such as Friends or ER. They're watched on every continent and have universal appeal, as they're based on universal human problems, on personal relationships and emotions. But these programs also present and promote ideas and attitudes. They enable viewers to see with their own eyes other ways of life. And, of course, an important element in all this is advertising. Let's not forget that the media receives most of its money from advertising—which means that advertisings a major feature of television, magazines, etc. Advertising works through the media, so we're constantly exposed to it and influenced by it. That's to say, the global spread of fads I mentioned earlier owes a lot to the power of advertising. So, just as, say, in the U.S. commercials proclaim that it's cool to wear Reebok trainers, that Kellogg's cereals are the healthiest way to start the day, that Colgate toothpaste gives your teeth the best protection, and so on . . . well, they're probably getting the same message in scores of other countries, with the result that, globally speaking, people's habits are changing; they're converging. What's an example of converging habits? . . . Oh, here's one. Many Japanese today eat cereal for breakfast rather than traditional rice and soup, or, uh, maybe have a hamburger at McDonald's for lunch. And, likewise, Ameri-

Unit 11 The New Global Superculture

TEACHER: Morning. I'd like to begin today's lecture with a question, and the question's this: We are now in an age where powerful social, political, and technological forces are changing our world and rapidly creating a homogeneous global society where people think and behave in similar ways. Do you think it's possible, in this kind of global soci-ety, for individual cultures to survive? Or will their unique traditions gradually disappear? And if these unique tradi-tions were to disappear, would it really matter? Would it, as many believe, really be a tragedy if we were to lose those things that make societies, communities, different? The fact is, the world is losing cultures quicker than you might think. Language is the best measure of cultural diversity, and it's estimated that one language is dying every two weeks, and with it unique ways of life . . . ways of thinking, communicating, and living.

So that's today's theme—the issue, if you will—that's at the heart of everything I'm going to say. First, I'll try to identify . . . um . . . describe the forces that are pushing us, driving us toward a homogeneous global society, a world superculture. Then, we'll go on to consider the disadvan-tages of a homogeneous society, and I'll . . . um . . . offer some thoughts as to why we should think very seriously about preserving individual cultures and their traditions. So . . . why is a global superculture emerging? What fac-tors can we say have contributed? Well, to start with, there's flight. You often hear people say the world has become smaller, and without doubt, flight—particularly affordable air travel—has had the greatest influence here. This means the airplane caused not just a technological but also a social revolution. Suddenly, large numbers of ordinary people were able to interact with people from other cultures thousands of miles away and see with their own eyes the differences and the similarities between them, the things that

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cans or Canadians might choose sushi, tacos, or Chinese food. In fact, today most people, at least in large cities, expect to get almost any kind of ethnic food. The fact is that the media spreads ideas incredibly widely, quickly, and effectively—Whether it's cell phones, eating habits, fashion, whatever—and that's what makes it such a powerful mar-keting tool. To understand just how powerful, think for a minute about the music industry. Consider how television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and the Internet have been used to promote music and pop stars internationally. Stars like Elvis, the Beatles, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, uh . . . the Spice Girls . . . these and other stars have acquired world fame, thanks mainly to the media. And the same is true of sports teams and stars. These celebrities are internationally famous, and people in different corners of the world want to imitate them, have similar lifestyles; indeed, that's why companies use celebrities to advertise their products. The idea is that if Ronaldo uses, say, Nike soccer shoes, then you'll want to do likewise, whether you're American, Argentinian, Korean, whatever. That's the mes-sage. And the result? Youth around the world end up using the same brands.

OK. The media, then, clearly plays a major role in spreading trends across the globe and highlighting our simi-larities. But there are other forces at work too, and world politics is surely one of these. Although political divisions and ideologies continue to separate nations, it is, I think, true to say that, generally speaking, that prejudice is diminishing and people are increasingly open to other cultures and ideas. To some extent this is no doubt the result of political and therefore social convergences, of unions such as the European Union which represents a group of countries with quite different traditions in many cases, but where, nevertheless, there exists a spirit of unity ... or at least cooperation. Europeans are beginning to feel that they're members of a larger culture that's more than simply a political convenience. Heads of government increasingly appear to be consulting and acting together on issues that affect the world at large, such as the environment and third-world poverty. Because these things are reported in the media on news shows like CNN and are seen by millions, they create a sense of pulling in the same direction ... a feeling that there's a \

There's another way in which politics can affect the spread of ideas across the globe, and that is through controlling the movement of people across national borders— immigration and emigration. Political circumstances—as well as more accessible international transportation—have brought an increase in the number who choose to emigrate to another country. And when people move, so do their ideas and beliefs. Immigrants introduce things from their own cultures into their new communities .. . from sports to food, house decor, games, you name it. Again, in many countries, from Australia to England, we're seeing cultures mixing together as never before. This increase in cross-cultural contact—along with the decrease in prejudice I mentioned earlier—has led to many interracial marriages, which in turn have produced children who are familiar with more than one culture. This again reinforces similarity, the

idea that we're all members of one human race, despite surface differences. As a result, I think we have a new global superculture that's both richer and more diverse than any one single culture.

Now, communications lie at the heart of most of the things I've been talking about. Even though air travel and the media have allowed us glimpses of each other's cultures, people could not convey their ideas, beliefs, and attitudes if they couldn't communicate them. So, what I want... what I'm trying to say is that I'd like to acknowledge the role English has played as the world's unofficial international language. If you want an example, just look at the Internet. In 1990 there were just a few hundred Internet sites; today there are tens of millions, and the vast majority of these are in English.

All right. Although I've only touched on a few very broad ideas, I'd like now to finish talking about the forces that are shaping a global superculture and end by briefly sharing a few thoughts on where this trend's going. I should first say that I think a global superculture's inevitable. And, in my opinion, in many ways that's a good thing, perhaps even an ideal. It emphasizes the oneness of mankind, promotes unity, and, I would argue, helps prepare the way for a fairer world where the earth's resources benefit everyone and wealth is evenly distributed. However, that is not to say that these things must be at the expense of cultural traditions, cultural diversity. Today, for example, we see the Ainu of Japan, the Chipaya of Bolivia, and the Penan of Malaysia on the list of endangered societies. If these and other cultures were to disappear, we'd lose the wonderful variety and richness of human life, whether we're talking about philosophies, clothes, or food. To some extent we'd lose part of what has made us what we are today, lose touch with our roots, perhaps even the variety and individuality that makes us unique as a species. What's more, there'd be practical. . . possibly very significant practical implications. For instance, we may lose the benefits of alternative approaches to . . . to . . . medicine, social systems, farming techniques, not to mention spiritual insight and the like. People in the developed world not only have a lot to give, but also a lot to learn from other societies about these and other things. We're already learning that technology doesn't necessarily bring advancement; it can also bring destruction, materialism, and a decrease in morality and social cohesion. And what about the purely aesthetic representations of human civilizations; what of art forms? Do we really want to lose the rich variety of art traditions, the many different cultural expressions of human existence. Perspectives on problem-solving too—dealing with environmental issues, say, creating a balance with nature—may be lost to us. Wouldn't these losses be tragic? I, for one, believe that future generations need to incorporate insights from a multitude of cultures. This would perhaps go some way toward preserving those cultures and traditions which very simply make human society richer and more colorful.

OK, well I could say a lot more but, as always, time doesn't permit. So, to summarize then, we've looked at some of the main factors that are contributing to an emerging global culture. They include, at least, cheap available air travel, the

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enormous power and influence of the media, changes in the political scenery— exemplified by the European Union, perhaps—and the role of English as an international lan-guage. I started by asking whether these developments will mean that individual cultural traditions will inevitably dis-appear. The answer, I think, is that, sadly, many already have, but it's possible for others to survive. For this to hap-pen, we need to think more carefully about the potential dangers of globalization, as well as its benefits, and we need to appreciate the value of these traditions, for only then will we think twice about carelessly losing them. Let's just hope enough of us realize that before it's too late.

OK. In preparation for your essay, I'd like you to think about ways in which we can ensure the survival of cultural traditions in a world where a superculture is rapidly emerg-ing. Are there any questions? Unit 12 Computer Security

TEACHER: All right, why don't we get started here. I'm quite sure that everyone in the class uses a computer regu-larly. For instance, uh, who uses e-mail every day? Right, just about everyone. Uh, how many of you use the Internet, say, at least five times a week? The same, just about everyone in the room. I think we would all agree that our lives have been changed and in many ways improved by the computer and the Internet; however, there are real dangers here. The fact is, computers and computer networks have created opportunities for crime that never existed before. As a result, the police and justice departments are becoming increasingly concerned about the growing number of computer users who are accessing private or secret informa-tion. Now this problem is on the increase worldwide. Sta-tistics are showing a trend toward more computer crime every year. In fact, recent studies have shown that around 70 percent of all companies that are online have experienced some type of attack. We can say that there are three reasons for these dangers.

Now first, personal computers hold huge amounts of information, and some of it's quite sensitive. Companies have sensitive business information, new products, and financial records to protect. Governments have defense secrets, federal banks, and records for millions of citizens. We've found that the theft of information is usually finan-cially motivated. Some companies try to get information from their competitors by accessing information from com-puters. Computer criminals also access and steal informa-tion in order to sell it to other people or competing compa-nies. Again, their purpose is usually financial gain.

OK. In the first case, the criminal steals information and then possibly sells it. The second reason for computer crime is to steal money directly. Banking, insurance, and business organizations use computers for most of their transactions, making them the hardest hit by computer criminals. Now think about this for a moment. The American banking system alone transfers over 400 billion dollars every day. With this amount being transferred daily, it's no wonder that experts fear that a major financial disaster could occur.

Now you may be interested to know that between l and 3 billion dollars are lost each year in the U.S. through com-puter crime, and 40 percent of large American companies suffered at least one major instance of computer fraud in the last ten years. Can you imagine? Forty percent! We can see from these figures how serious a problem this is. I call the people who commit these crimes computer criminals rather than hackers, because hackers may not be motivated by financial gain.

Now this is how a typical scenario might go. A computer criminal—um, let's call the criminal a \—figures out how to get into a bank network. He changes account names and numbers and puts money into a bank account that he has already opened. He then withdraws the money from the account, which is of course not in his real name. His crime has just made him rich.

In case you were wondering, this has actually happened many times in the past. In companies, goods can be stolen and inventory, that is the list of goods, and sales figures can be changed to cover up the problem. Mailing addresses can also be. temporarily changed so that expensive or valuable items are sent to the criminal's address. The accounts can then be changed back to the original addresses. Sometimes they don't detect this type of robbery for months or years, so it's impossible to find the criminal because the records have been changed back. Now remember—these things are not just stories; they have really happened.

All right. Let's consider the third reason for computer crime, which involves hacking, that is, breaking into some-one else's private computer network, often that of a company or agency. Now hacking can take place for various reasons, but it tends to be done by individuals, not organized groups, and those individuals are typically young men in their teens or twenties. Some apparently do it for the challenge, while others feel angry at society or feel powerless in their everyday lives. Hacking provides such people with something they can't get elsewhere—an exciting and com-plex challenge, an opportunity to show how much they know, and a sense of importance.

Now that we've considered some of the causes of hacking and computer crime, let's consider the effects. Well, the events that have occurred in the past twenty years are aston-ishing. On more than one occasion, computers all over the world have been shut down as a computer virus has raced around the planet. In less than twenty-four hours, billions of dollars in work hours have been lost. Computers in major companies, and even major software companies, have been shut down completely. In one case, approximately 70 percent of the computers in several European countries were shut down. Even government computers were affected. How can this happen? Easy—the transmission of a simple virus program. Even beginning students of computer science can make powerful viruses that can do everything I've just mentioned. They can write a virus program and send it via the Internet to hundreds of computer users. The virus enters the user's computer's operating system, replaces good files with a copy of itself, and then sends itself to other computers via the computer user's e-mail address book. Soon millions of computers can be infected.

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Now there's a whole other side to this problem that is more closely related to your life. Imagine that a computer criminal is able to get, um, let's say, your credit card number. In the best case scenario, this will cause you a great deal of inconvenience, and in the worst case scenario, it will cause you financial loss. Another possibility is that someone may get your social security number; then they can impersonate you. This can lead to serious problems and huge costs in terms of time spent solving the problem and the stress involved. The more powerful a technology is, the more potential there is for problems.

Well, I've tried to give you some background about the seriousness of the problem, but now I'd like to briefly talk about the battle between hackers and computer criminals on the one side and the people and companies interested in preventing these problems on the other. What's being done to stop computer crime? First, the courts are getting much tougher with hackers—the people who illegally enter a computer network—even if they claim not to be stealing anything. The courts are also now punishing computer criminals more severely in order to give potential criminals a strong message that computer crime is serious, and if you're caught doing it, you'll be punished. Some of these criminals have gone to federal prison for several years and been fined large sums of money. This is seen as a way to discourage people from experimenting with this new type of crime.

Now within a company or other organization, firewalls are the first line of defense—the first way to deter computer crime. A firewall is a software program that acts as a gate-keeper between the Internet and a company's intranet— that's I-N-T-R-A-N-E-T—the network of computers used by the company's employees. Now one type of firewall examines the source address and destination address of all of the data going in or out of the network. It can stop some data from entering the network and other data from leaving. However, firewalls can't protect networks from all attacks. In the past, hackers have often gotten around a firewall by accessing the network from a modem that an employee has brought in on his or her own without talking to the system administrator. Such employees are also trying to find an easy route around the firewall, usually because they want to access data on their work computer from home. These paths must also be closed, so if you have a colleague who is doing this sort of thing, you should definitely talk to them because they're opening a door for potential hacking.

And another way to increase security is through the use of less obvious and less easily remembered passwords. For instance, employees are often advised to never use a per-son's name, such as \programs that are called password guessers. These programs check every word in a large dictionary, all of the names in an encyclopedia, and then they use each entry in a local telephone book. As you can guess, if you have used almost any word in your local language, the hacker will eventually find out what it is and then be able to get into your system. The most difficult passwords to guess are a combination of small and capital letters, numbers and punctuation marks, such as \tion point, small M.\Try finding that with a password guesser. In addition, passwords should be told to the mini-mum number of people.

OK, a fourth method concerns access-control software— something which has become quite common. Now this software limits the user's access to information as well as the operations he can perform. So for example, access-control software might only let people read certain files or programs but not input data, and it may keep them out of other files entirely. Many universities use this type of software. Com-puter system administrators at the school can access the entire system; teachers can access a great deal of it, but not as much as the system administrators; and finally, students can access fewer areas than the teachers. It works on a \to know\been developed to scramble data so that hackers can't understand it even if they do steal it. The data can be read and used only if the user knows the key. Now this is a very effective way of protecting information. Encryption has developed rapidly since the 1980s, so now all of us can have access to fast, affordable, and powerful encryption systems. These systems are already resistant to the average hacker, and in a few years only government or military super-computers will be able to break most codes.

And finally, audit trails—that's A-U-D-I-T trails—are also available. Audit trails monitor the use of a computer and alert owners to any attempts to enter their computer system. It's usually possible to identify any user who gains access to the system and when the access occurred, making it possible to trace the hacker. Although this isn't simple to do, it can be done, particularly if the hacker persists and returns for repeated attacks on the system. One way that some hackers have been caught has been when the system administrator has what is called a \information is put in the jail. This might be something like credit card numbers or other sensitive financial data. When the hacker tries to get the false data, the administrator uses software to determine where the hacker is. The software follows the line of data back to the hacker's computer.

Well, those are some of the major things that are happen-ing at present to decrease computer crime. None of them are completely satisfactory, but together they're certainly helping to maintain the integrity of personal and corporate computer systems and communications. And these changes, as well as the improvements that are certain to come, should influence people to stop hacking by making it less profitable and more risky. And this will help ensure confidentiality when communicating via computer. Well, let's stop here for today, and get started with your presentations. Our first speakers, uh, Carlos and Yumi, are scheduled to talk about encryption.

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