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Hacker culture(s)-- lecture notes, February 23, 2000 -- |
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Introduction |
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| Dimensions of hacker culture(s) |
Hacker culture(s) today come out of hobby hacking, academic hacking and network hacking. It is more or less based on an ethical code, interpreted and shared in different ways. How can it be understood? There are a few dimensions that seem to span the field in a useful way. Hacking --- cracking. Real hackers are careful to point out that malicious hacking activities should properly speaking be called cracking. However, the question is where to draw the line. The police, the corporate world, the judicial system, etc take a fairly restrictive position. Much of what hackers would call exploration for the sake of learning is regularly prosecuted. Before the web, most network hacking/cracking involved finding computers on the network, getting into them, looking around, perhaps downloading some files and then preparing a back door for convenient entry later on. Some of the pleasure seemed to be in collecting adresses to computers where the hacker had access. Of course, there was also the element of using superior technical skills to bypass the security system. Hacking and cracking in the late 90s has taken a few more visible forms. Defacing web pages is very popular, given the enormous visibility of the results. This basically means cracking a computer that runs a web server and place your own pages there instead of the original information. Attrition has a large mirror archive of defaced web pages. Due to the public nature of web and mail servers, they can be cracked also without access to the computer on which they run. Denial-of-service attacks on public servers, which entails sending millions of requests to the servers simultaneously from many sources, are quite frequent. Mail bombing can be seen as a variation on the same theme. Creating and disseminating a virus is another form of hacking/cracking that has taken off with the increasing penetration of Internet usage. Email is now by far the most common carrier of virus and Trojan horses. Purpose. Some hacker cultures view intrusion as a means for learning more about computers and networks. If data are altered, it is typically done as a practical joke. Basically, the hackers view the intrusions as harmless, in spite of corporate security policies and perhaps legislation, as long as the consequences of the intrusions can be undone (by someone with adequate system knowledge, of course). Another common hacker argument for exposing security flaws by intrusion is to help build safer systems in the future. Contrary to the traditional hacker norm of keeping a low profile, many of the web defacement attacks are of the graffiti kind. There is no discernible purpose, only a triumphant message from the crackers. The common expression is "[You have been] owned by group X", together with a graffiti-style tag image. Hacking/cracking has often been used as a means for personal revenge. It is not unknown for police officers investigating computer crime to receive personal credit card bills and phone bills in huge amounts. The hacker has gained access to, e.g., the phone company and manipulated the records. Political activism is another reason for hacking/cracking. The Telia web site in Sweden was defaced in 1996 as a result of growing discontent with the monopoly and pricing policy for Internet services. The Swedish Animal Liberation Front attacked Smittskyddsinstitutet and Karolinska Institutet repeatedly on 1998-99 in order to stop unnecessary experiments on animals. An internationally well-known group is PHAIT (Portuguese Hackers Against Indonesian Tyranny) who attacked Indonesian authorities several times in 1997, motivated by the situation in East Timor. Cyberpunk --- extropism. Linus Walleij defines a cyberpunk as
Cyberpunk is essentially a pessimistic stance on the macro level, where society is seen as structures of global information systems ruling the people. Visions of the future are dystopic. However, the cyberpunk/hacker has the necessary skills to survive and prosper in such a world. Hence the optimistic twist on the individual level of fighting the system. The notion of fighting oppressive systems extends also to the limitations of the human body. Smart drugs, implants and cyborg mythology are strongly associated with cyberpunk. Where cyberpunk is dystopic, extropism concentrates on positive outcomes for society. The word extropy is the inverse of enthropy, and it means that we can continue to exceed our limitations by means of new technology. Persistent experimentation and development of technology will lead to greater freedom for the individual and less oppression. A necessary condition is that free individuals (rather than corporations or authorities) take charge of the development.
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