Reading Goal: Find a visual text that's in a different genre from what I've done before.
Writing Goal: Work on conclusion to do less restating and more thought-provoking.
(Source: http://xkcd.com/1354/)
On April 7th, 2014, it became public knowledge that a security bug called "Heartbleed" was loose on the internet, making many people's important passwords at risk to be stolen. At this time, most internet users had heard of it, but many (including me) didn't really understand how it worked. On April 11th, Randall Munroe, the author of the popular webcomic xkcd, released a comic explaining how the bug worked. His audience for his webcomic is mainly avid internet users, often in the range of high schoolers to middle-aged people. This particular comic, however, could be directed to anyone who wished to understand how Heartbleed was stealing their passwords. Through his use of bold text and highlighting, Munroe effectively points out to viewers how Heartbleed works.
In the first panel, Munroe draws the character Meg stating a request to the computer, and by uses bold text, shows that request in the computer's dialog. The reader can also see the other requests to the server in non-bolded text. In the next frame, the response to the request is highlighted, and the computer is shown sending the response. These first two panels establish a system for how Munroe will show the request-and-response pattern, and the bold text and highlighting make what he is trying to show very clear. The next two frames repeat this pattern to teach it to readers. The final two panels, then, point out to readers how Heartbleed works. Munroe uses the bold text to again show the request, but then shows readers through the highlighted text that not only the response part of the bolded request is what is given in response – many of the other, non-bolded requests (for example, "User Karen wants to change account password") are part of the computer's response, too. By using tools like bold and highlighted text, Munroe effectively taught his audience about the request-and-response system used by Heartbleed to find vulnerable information like passwords.
When the Heartbleed bug became common knowledge, popular webcomic artist Randall Munroe was able to use his fame to teach people about how the bug worked in a simple, interesting manner. He used mainly bold and highlighted text to explain to readers the system used by the bug. The only shortcoming in this cartoon, though, is that it does not tell readers what they can do about the bug. It would have interrupted the flow of the cartoon, but a small footnote or something equally unassuming would have been a helpful and important addition.
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