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Our next talk is going
to be by Suzanne Bunkmates.
She's a social scientist
and, um, she's doing
research about hacking
and also she claims she's not a hacker.
She's actually written a paper about GSM
hacking.
Um, yeah.
So this is going to be very interesting.
Um, we also have translation
available for this talk.
You just dial eighty fourteen,
so give a warm welcome to Suzanne
and enjoy.
Yes. Thank you for having me.
I'm very happy to be here.
So by way of an introduction,
this talk is about concepts.
I'm a social scientist and I'm interested
in concepts, words, ideas, vocabularies,
concepts matter because
if you don't have a conceptual
understanding of something, you can't
really talk about it.
You can't really work with it.
You can't criticize it.
That's why concepts are important tools.
And this talk is about conceptual
approaches to hacking, hacking
as a phenomenon, something that you can
do, you can observe,
you can talk about something that
you might want to have a conceptual
understanding of.
So the question for this talk is,
thank you.
The question for this talk is what
is hacking?
What's the concept of hacking?
What should it be?
What should be a concept of hacking?
Like maybe that's
a boring question for you.
Maybe your impulse is to say, come
on, open your eyes is just right in front
of you.
But for me as a social scientist,
this is a crazy question.
So what's hacking?
That's sort of really big question.
And because this is a tiny little
talk, I will
be talking about something that is a
little smaller.
I will be talking about concepts
of hacking in academic research.
How does academic research
conceive of hacking?
Academic research is increasingly
interested in hacking
research fields that are interested in
hacking all the social sciences
generally, but also interdisciplinary
fields that bridge between social
sciences and technology, design,
engineering, informatics and
computer science fields
such as human computer interaction
or shot HCI.
Now, if research seeks
to study practices such as
hacking, typically there's
some form of exchange involved
exchange between those who are doing
the study, running the study and those
who are studied and were observed,
interviewed and so on.
However, Pfeiffer, probably
many of you know him, a blogger
of the German hacking community want
hackers against collaborating with
researchers.
Here's a quote.
I quickly translate the first part into
into English.
So lately, he writes,
There has been a lot of research about
hacking, about hacking communities and
hacker spaces, also about groups
such as Occupy.
If they these researchers knock
on your door, don't tell them anything
just because they are polite and nice,
you don't have to cooperate.
So and he goes on suggesting
that these nerdy scientists that knock on
your door are sent by the bad guys, think
tanks, consulting companies, corporate
and public agencies who are afraid
of hackers and want to spy on them.
So the thing is, I don't know
anything about that spying business.
I'm sorry, I can't tell you about
that. But what I can tell you is
what academic research about hacking
actually looks like, how academic
research conceives of hacking and
how it conceptually approaches
hacking.
But before I do that, before
I give you an overview of academic
approaches to hacking, I want to give
you the back story.
I want to tell you why I'm
doing this, actually.
So hacking is not my
main research business.
Hacking, sort of a weird side interest
of mine.
And I've been twice at the Congress
before a couple of years ago in 2010
and 2011.
And I liked it very much.
And at the same time, I became
increasingly interested in HCI,
that is, in human computer interaction.
And I realized that in this field
HCI, there's a growing literature
about hacking.
So FCI is a research field,
is about the ways in which humans
interact with computers, it's part
social, part technical,
it's part observing and understanding
users and part building
and designing for users.
So users HCI is typically about
users. What do users want?
What do they do?
How can they be triggered into doing the
right thing?
Researching human computer interaction
has recently become very, very interested
in hacking, but also in hacker spaces
making and Do-It-Yourself practices.
Hacking is interesting for HCI because
it is seen as a model for somehow
engaging more actively, more
deeply with computers.
There are a lot of funding applications
written about hacking at the moment,
but I didn't somehow I didn't like
the way HCI
research approaches hacking.
I found it lacking.
I found it a bit disappointing because
I think this kind of research was,
to my mind, blind and blind
to hacking infrastructural scope.
Hacking is not just about modifying
artifacts, it's about infrastructures,
reconfiguring infrastructures,
as I see it.
And perhaps even more importantly,
this research was blind to the political
messages of hacking hacking
practices, communicate a political
sentiment, communicate political
messages.
And I didn't find that in that
literature.
So in the remainder of my talk, I want
to introduce some of these research
approaches that I find lacking
and I say lacking sort
of academic diplomacy,
because much of this research is
good research. It's not bad research.
It's just that it leaves out very
important parts of the picture, the
larger picture of what hacking aspires
or can aspire to be.
So and I also introduce
some research approaches that I really
like that are much
better at grasping the larger picture
and that are doing justice to the
political messages that hacking practices
can convey.
So.
A first approach, conceptual
approach to hacking, hacking as
creative and ad hoc
for researchers and human computer
interaction, hacking is interesting
because it approaches things differently.
It it breaks things.
It turns them upside down
and improvises.
Hacking is interesting because it is
creative and it is creative, often
an unplanned, ad hoc manner.
That's why Joseph Paradiso and
he's working with von Hippel.
Many of you probably know that guy
Paradiso and his collaborators
characterize hacking as ad hoc, clashing.
So he has a quote, hacking is
appropriating, modifying or clashing
existing resources, devices,
hardware, software or anything within
reach to suit other purposes,
often in an ingenious fashion.
And hacking is
also described in sort of the same
manner as opportunistic practice
with an ad hoc nature.
And there's more researchers who follow
that line of thinking.
For example, the use of tools and the
making of tools and hacker spaces is
described as ad hoc activity,
making the most of what is
at hand. And if you don't have a tool,
you make it.
And if you don't have the stuff to make
a tool, you just make it anyway with
different stuff. So and
that's a kind of creativity that many
researchers in human computer interaction
find so inspiring.
And they want to tap into that source of
inspiration, too.
And that's fine.
But it offers a very narrow perspective
on hacking, sort of liking the larger
frame. I believe
the tricky question is what's
what's the motivation?
What are the interests behind this kind
of research?
Is it a pedagogical interest in learning,
trying to adapt the forms of learning
that you find in hacking communities for
mainstream education at schools and
universities?
That's one line of research.
And for researchers, it's very,
very fascinating to see
how very complicated, very
technical knowledge, but also very hands
on knowledge is disseminated in
online communities.
But often the motivation to research
hacking is a different one.
It's an interest in innovation and
economic value.
And the question then is, do these
research interests align with the
interests that people in the hacking
community have?
So innovation, economic
value.
Let me give you some examples for
how research frames hacking
as innovation.
Research in the field of HCI has
described hacking in these academic
sorry, in these academic papers
as innovative leisure
practice.
It has also described hacking as end
user innovation or a form
of user driven product development.
Hacking has also been called a simple
way to speed up prototype development.
So this is all about innovation, finding
a new take on technology,
innovation and innovation is
an economic term.
Innovation is something that possesses
economic value, something that someone
can make money with.
So and you find this line of thought also
in the work of other researchers, for
example, Sylvia Lindner and
collaborators, they studied hacker spaces
in China and the US and they
went to these hacker spaces, observe
people, talk to them, interview them,
participated.
And when they wrote up their research
and turned it into an academic paper,
what they wrote was this hacker spaces
as sites of innovation using
oh, that's this one.
And she has a longer quote.
Our research suggests
that we need to see hacker spaces
not just as a place that amortizes
the cost of a laser cutter and a 3D
printer across hundreds of people.
It is a place where people are
experimenting with new ideas about the
relationships among corporations,
designers and consumers.
And what they observe and are interested
in observing is the shift.
Quote again from Hobbie to
entrepreneurial practice.
And that's zooming in on economic value
and I have sort of a very ambivalent
stance towards this perspective, I
don't think hacking is essentially
about business and product.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I
can see that this economic perspective
is doing a nice PR job for the hacking
community, especially the especially
in the US context.
To say that hacking is about
technological innovation is one way
to decriminalize it.
It's a way
that may be a good thing, but it's also a
way that completely leaves aside the
political sentiment that much of hacking
carries with itself.
At least it's at least a side political
sentiment. And that's why I
say with this epidemic
academic diplomacy, I find this approach
a little lacking.
So, um,
so what do you do as a researcher?
If you don't like the research literature
that you have, you look for more
literature.
And if human computer interaction
doesn't get it entirely right,
maybe others do, maybe
social scientists, anthropologists,
sociologists.
And in fact, I found research approaches
to hacking that I really like and that
are really getting at something.
One of them is this hacking
means transgression,
transgression, what's transgression?
Breaking a rule, violating a
convention.
But hacking, hacking and transgression
and hacking practice can take so many
forms there is legal transgression.
Breaking the law is a legal
transgression, but it doesn't have to
be a law. You can break other things,
too.
You can break economic conventions.
You can break cultural conventions.
Just because you are expected to use your
phone in a certain way doesn't mean you
have to do it.
You can break social conventions and
perhaps most importantly,
you can break programing conventions.
Research in various fields has emphasized
this point, particularly in sociology
and of course, in criminology.
Kevin Steinmetz and Ethnographer
Publishing and Criminology describes
hacking as transgressive craft.
And for example, the sociologist Paul
Taylor has described hacking as
illicit.
And I think that's getting at something.
A lot of hacking is about transgression,
transgressing conventions.
That's a good thing.
But another important sociological
approach to hacking is this
one.
And here we are getting really to some
conceptual stuff, hacking as
challenging technological determinism,
so technological determinism is the view
that technology completely determines
the social and this view technology
determines what we do, what we think, how
we behave, how we form communities,
how communities function, how societies
function.
And for Silicon Valley,
this may be fine.
For sociologists, this is a horror
scenario, absolutely horror.
Now, some sociologists believe
that hackers are actually their allies
in fighting technological determinism.
For example, the English sociologist Tim
Jordan argues
that hacking both demands and refutes
technological determinism.
Hackers presume that the technologies
involved and computers and networks will
determine certain actions.
And they presume also it is possible
for them to alter and recreate
such determinations.
So fighting technological determinism,
I think we're getting a little closer to
the scope and the political message
of hacking, and we're getting closer
to a research approach that I really
admire, hacking
as practiced liberalism.
So that's another perspective
in the social sciences, most prominently
voiced by Gabriella Coleman, a U.S.
anthropologist, and her collaborators.
Many of you probably know Gabriella
Coleman. She just published a book about
Anonymous and how Anonymous morphed
into political activism.
She's interested in the political
dimension of hacking.
And together with Alex Galab, she
has argued that hacking is, in fact
practiced liberalism.
What underlies hacking?
So that argument is the
liberal ethos of freedom,
freedom from corporate and political
surveillance, freedom to do stuff,
to reclaim proprietary knowledge,
create technology and disseminate
technological knowledge.
And what about transgression?
You're actually Coleman and Golove
described transgression, too,
as a reflection of American liberalism.
It reflects, they argue, the very liberal
value of creative individuality
and individuality that expresses
itself against the conventions of
mainstream society.
So what this work shows, in a way,
is that hacking is true American
liberalism.
One message that I read here is
Hello America.
Don't be afraid of your hackers.
Don't don't hate them.
They are your true self.
That's that's one of the messages.
Here's a quote, hacking
sort of marginalized or misunderstood
in popular culture as the practice
of deviant subculture, in
fact, reveals the continuing
relevance, if also the contradictions
of the liberal traditions to
the digital present.
The only thing to keep in mind here is
that this is a very American story and
that the European perspective might
look a little differently.
So.
Now that I'm almost at the end of my
talk, I want to get back to something
that I told you at the beginning.
I told you that it's important for me at
least to have a conceptual
understanding of hacking,
to be able to say what it is,
to be able to talk about it.
But for me, that's only half of the
story, because once you have a conceptual
understanding of hacking, you can start
challenging, rethinking
and remodeling the other concepts
that you have.
And two concepts that seem to become ever
more important are technology use
and design, use and design.
We talk about design all the time.
We talk a little less about use because
it's so profane in a way.
But design and use are
two sides of a conceptual coin.
And the fascinating thing about hacking
is hacking is challenging the standard
story of first design,
then use
the standard story of first design.
The news is this there's professional
designers and
then there's more or less experienced
users that put more
or less effort into appropriating
a technology.
The ordinary human being is user,
the user supposed to use technology.
And then there's the designer
in the broad sense of the term, also,
including engineers and business
stakeholders.
The designers are privileged, a very
privileged professional, the
designer is powerful and the designer
changes the world
user designer.
So usually there's nothing
much in between or beyond that.
And I find this kind of thinking terribly
limiting that's thinking in very
neat squares.
Hecker's, in fact, are
not really they are not really that
they sound really designers and they
aren't really users.
They mix it all up in a way.
Hacking practices mix this up, this
this neat distinction.
So what hacking shows is that this
neat story of first design,
then use doesn't really work out
and that it shouldn't work out.
It shouldn't work out.
This story needs to be challenged.
Otherwise we end up in a world with
a class of privileged designers
and the large group of users
who can use stuff, maybe choose not
to use stuff, maybe change
the color of the phone, but not much
else.
Um.
To wrap this talk up, a quick
conclusion, I was basically
talking about two questions, what is
taking the short answer is it can
be all kinds of things.
There's a range of approaches, research
approaches to hacking.
And it very much depends on the values
and research interests that underlie
your research.
That's that's the thing to get it.
I think how
research conceives of hacking depends
on interests
sometimes. It also depends on funding
applications and on values.
And then there was a second question, the
question Seyffer raised.
Should hackers talk to researchers
if they knock on their door?
I'd say, why not?
Why not?
But better first, have an open
conversation about interests
and values.
Thank you.
Thank you for the talk, and, uh, we
have time for a couple of questions, if
you have any questions, just line up in
front of one of the microphones
distributed all over the cell.
Yeah, please.
Hello.
Um, thank you for the talk.
First thing I think was very well
structured and I had fun following it.
Uh, however, I kind of tuned
in a little late and maybe you took
something, uh, said something about I
didn't get um.
You said something about the concept of
innovation. Actually, what I'm getting at
is just a little detail, but, um,
the concept of innovation being
economical and
um, I wondered, is it
often or is it predominantly
interpreted that way?
Because you could also innovate
because you have a certain need,
a certain what a need.
You're just playing around and something
fun happens and say, uh, accidental
innovation.
Yeah, but but I think the term
itself has a strong economic connotation.
So if you talk about innovation typically
as a sort of a research term,
then you talk about something that that
has a money value.
And of course, there's also social and
social innovation, organizational
innovation.
But but this term has strong roots,
apart from our everyday use of the word,
maybe has strong roots in economic
in an economic vocabulary.
So if a researcher writes a paper about
hacking is innovation, um,
there's an underlying economic value.
OK, thanks, interesting, because I, as
a user of that language, have
a completely different understanding of
it, like what you said or your everyday
perception of there is a difference
between everyday language and what you
write in a research paper.
OK, thanks.
OK, there's another question on the left
microphone.
Thank you.
I actually have two questions,
if that's all right.
You talked a lot about, uh, innovations
and also about, uh, and
cosponsorship.
And I kind of got, uh, reminded
of, uh, Schumpeter's idea of, uh,
um, creative destruction.
And, um, but my,
uh, first question is, uh, do you
see a problem that, uh, because
Hecker's, uh, uh, decriminalized
and, uh, I'm all seen
as these, uh, innovators
that the that actually
the society is changing the heck
us that they that the heck
want to actually want to change.
Uh uh, OK, OK.
I'm not sure I got the letter proper, but
I don't see a problem in decriminalize
decriminalizing Hecker's.
But I see a problem in reducing the
phenomenon of hacking to an economic
phenomenon. I think that I think
that that's not doing justice to the
phenomenon. I mean, that's sort of a very
flat, very narrow picture of
it. And I don't think it serves the
community.
If we now portray in research
portraying hackers as the new
entrepreneurs, I think that's
I think that that's very
limited, if not a decremental way
of approaching it.
And my second question,
as a social scientist myself,
I always feel like
social scientists and, um,
uh, informational
people, scientists, computer scientists.
Thank you. Uh, uh,
speak two completely different languages
at some point.
And my question is,
how far do you think something
is lost or gained
if you, uh, do a translation
into a social scientist language or
that's the way you want.
I mean, that's a very that's
a very good point.
I've been struggling with this a lot.
So this is I mean, you can frame it
as a problem of interdisciplinarity
or just as a problem of two cultures
or whatever.
But there is there is sort of a deep gap
between someone who's thinking and social
scientists terms and
computer science.
There is a there is there's sort of a gap
between that.
And I think the
thing to keep in mind is that
different cultures are different.
Academic cultures are good at different
things. So social scientists have
a very refined vocabulary when
talking about power.
Communities, societies
and computer scientists have a very
refined vocabulary when talking
about programing languages.
And they may not have that defined
vocabulary when they are talking about
societies.
So for a social scientist who hears
computer scientists talking about
societies, sometimes it's, you know,
sometimes you are taking a bit aback
because you think, oh, my God, where's
the conceptual finesse here?
But the thing to keep in mind is I
think that social scientists
are often observers.
And when you when you come here and to
get into you get into immerse into
this hacking culture, this
is a culture of sort of actually doing
things and getting things done.
And I find that very amazing.
And that's something I think social
scientists have to remind
themselves of.
Thank you.
OK, we have a question from the Internet.
We take that first.
I try to treat this as a stack, so I pop
it off the
Internet.
Really thanks you for your talk and
enjoyed your home delivery.
And the question is, do you think that
hacking should be accessible to all?
And how can we get those who do not
understand what hacking is involved
in it?
Oh, these are two good questions.
Yeah, I think hacking
I think it would be great if everyone
had sort of the cultural,
social and financial capital
to to to get engaged with hacking.
Unfortunately, I think this
this is not realistic for the near future
because you have to remember that this is
a practice that takes a lot of
it takes time, it takes money, but it
also takes a certain mindset.
Not every not everyone is ready for
that. It takes what we call a social
scientist, cultural capital
do not to actually to take a phone
apart if you purchased the
phone for for a lot of money
and and and you really
don't want to take it apart if it's
the last kind of thing that you were
able to purchase.
So it takes a lot of capital, both in
cultural and financial terms.
But I think as sort
of a societal vision, it's
a nice and good and important vision to
make hacking more widely available.
And the second question,
what was the second question?
Can you repeat?
The second part was how
can we get those who do not understand
what hacking is involved in it?
That's also a good question.
I think that's a question of of
communication and dissemination,
it's a question of I think
decriminalizing hacking.
I think that's important.
Making hacking again, one of those.
Getting backing away from this
gray zone periphery thingy,
providing giving, having a more positive
image in the eyes
of a broader audience, in the eyes of our
society.
But I think to decriminalize
hacking is there are many ways to do
that. And as I've said, I think
reave, refashioning, hacking as
the new entrepreneurship, I think we
don't want to do so.
That's a it's a difficult task.
OK, so we should have time for two
short questions so that police on the
left, you waited.
Hi, thanks a lot for your perspective.
I have a I mean, my question is kind of
like I was wondering for a clarification
on your position and where
you see yourself as a researcher and a
clarification on your critique
in your in your analysis
of the HCI research
of Lidner or Hartmann, it seems
like you're conflating Hacker,
as one might see here, and cryptanalysis
with hacker as they see in maker
spaces.
Maker spaces are a very much a
commercialized space that it seems like
you're you're kind of brushing together
this wide gamut of lots of things that
can be considered hacking as something
that is being covered by them.
And then you're criticizing the Academy
of researchers in this space.
But at the same time, it seems to be the
same place where you're publishing.
And so how do you see your position in
bettering that?
And how do you see you
yourself as a social scientist
or as a hacker or as a hacker encourager,
as someone who is a part or within it?
Yeah, thank you.
That's a that's an interesting.
I think two questions, first
is question about there's a diversity,
certainly there is making Do-It-Yourself
and hacking and.
I don't think I'm conflating these
things, actually, I think I have a
problem of putting them all into one
bucket, because if you if you put
it and that's often done in the
literature, there's often this phrase
hacking and making practices.
And I don't like that because if you put
hacking and making together and
sort of then you end up with
this image of hacking is like making
and making is this commercialized
inventor thingy
very close to Silicon Valley thinking
and stuff. And I don't like that.
I think it should be I should be I think
there should be more diversity in the
literature actually acknowledging these
differences that there is a difference
between rather a apolitical
making practices and practices
that concern something like security
research. So I think we should keep these
things a little more apart.
Making is apolitical.
Sorry, all of it, but there are some.
So if we are talking about research
papers in terms of research making
is often portrayed as apolitical
and the cases that they refer to
are often sort of I think
compared to hacking, rather a political
case is not I don't think these things
should be all put into one bucket.
I think there should be more of a.
Sensibility for the diversity of
it and your second question, how
I see myself as a researcher and
that I'm actually publishing in this
film.
I'm I'm about to publish one
paper in this field, it's not my main
sort of research area
and I'm actually publishing in this
field because I think there is a need
for this field HCI to
get more of this perspective
that recognizes political sentiment.
I think there is a lack of research on
that. I think the research
perspective so far is somewhat
too narrow.
OK, unfortunately, we're out of time,
um, and we need,
uh, some time to prepare for the next
talk. So thank you for being here and
enjoy the rest of the Congress.
Thanks again.