Ada Lovelace was an expert on the Babbage analytical engine. Her “Notes” on the engine contained the first published computer program – instructions on how to calculate the Bernoulli numbers.
Grand Text Auto report that Hanna Wallach presented preliminary results from FLOSS-POLS survey. Part of the data shows that while boys have their own computer by the age of 15 most girls have to wait until they are over 20.
In a report on IT related Crime (Lars Emanuelsson Korsell och Krister Söderman) from The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention from the year 2000 we find the wierd and wonderful quote:
â??Män misstänks för dataintrÃ¥ng, de manipulerar, raderar och stjäl program, filer eller data. När kvinnor misstänks som gärningsmän handlar det mestadels om interna dataintrÃ¥ng â?? obehörig registerupplysning och radering av filer, program eller data. Endast tre kvinnor misstänks för databedrägeri.â??
Källa: IT-relaterad brottslighet, BR�-rapport 2000:2
Loosely translated: Men are suspected of breaking into computer systems, they manipulate, erase and steal programs, files or data. When women are suspected it is mostly internally accessing computer systems – unauthorised looking at files and erasing files, programs or data. Only three women are suspected of computer fraud.
The authors therefore state that men are actively carrying out manly tasks of destruction while women are driven by curiousity to peek into files. Men “break, manipulate, erase and steal” while women look and erase. Even to the most untrained this is a joke. Men are doers who do macho stuff while women are either driven by curiousity or erase (by incompetence?).
I realise that the report is from 2000 but… come on!! Can they have written this with a straight face?