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Welcome, everybody, to the next talk
hacking collective as a laboratory,
our speaker is Martin Darold.
He's from Poland.
And this talk is about as about sociology
and the talk will offer you an insight
on the sociological research
that has been done on hacker spaces
and hacking collectives.
And now I ask you for a warm round of
applause to great margins.
Have a lot of fun.
Hi, my name is Martin
Zero Time, a member of the Warsaw
hackerspace, I'm also
the candidate that sociologic at the
Institute of Sociology at the University
of Also.
Before I start, I ask you,
please imagine a computer
bug.
It could be a software bug.
It could be an exploit.
It could be a hardware bug.
It could be the start of your hacking
career. It could be the bug that you are
struggling currently.
Please imagine any kind of computer bug.
You do not have to be a hacker if you are
just interested. It could be a bug that
you just read about in the popular press.
I do not care.
Please imagine that's 10 seconds.
Any kind of computer bug.
So I guess that
some of you can imagine
the computer bug also thought about
how it works.
Some of you forgot how to
stop it working, some of
your thought, how to exploit it, how
to make money of it, or how to
make this good, this bug
for a good cause or any kind of cause.
Some of you also perhaps
forgot how to make it visible
or how to make it invisible
or what machines, instruments
would it take to make it to
change the degrees of visibility?
Would it not need an oscilloscope?
Would it need a server or
any kind of software?
Perhaps some of you thought about
systematic bugs, bugs
that are inherent to particular designs.
Some of you might have thought about
situational box that are exceptional,
connected with particular sets of
constraints that do not happen
every time.
Obviously, some of those questions
are technological questions.
Some of those questions might be
connected with science or medicine
because the question about knowledge
is inherently connected with different
kinds of scientific, technological,
medical reasoning.
But there are kind of questions
that we when we start asking
them, we come closer to economical
issues or sociological issues or
philosophical issues.
And sociology of science
is about what is
common for the people
who are shared by the same thinking
or similar thinking about particular
categories of knowledge.
So when you start asking
questions, who may see
that particular kind of bug
or when we start the questions,
what does it take to
see that particular kind of bug in a
sense of situational setting or a
sociological setting?
Then we are studying that.
Then we are starting to ask philosophical
questions or sociological questions.
The difference is when
a philosopher asks about
knowledge, he or she thinks
about the individual.
And when a sociologist starts
asking similar questions, he or she
thinks about the group.
So some of you might
have thought about the particular
kind of man in the middle attacks, for
example, as described at CloudFlare
Block, it's OK.
Some of you might have thought about
syphilis or maybe not,
because this is a different kind of bug
and it doesn't and it's
not that closely connected with computers
or is it?
So when we
fall, when we think about the box,
our knowledge in terms of sociological
knowledge, we start
to understand that
learning to see a bug
is also about belonging
to a particular group.
When we start to see different kind of
bugs, when we learn how to manipulate
them, how to exploit them in a different
kind of way, we are also being closer
and closer to particular knowledge
or particular experts, sub
societies or sub social groups.
And obviously the bug is connected
with a particular setting.
It might be situational, but
more often than not, it also needs
an extra work to make it visible.
It doesn't mean that this is artificial
or natural.
It just means that it's not
obvious or
it requires a special norat or a
special social setting in
order to make it visible.
This is one thing that is shared between
syphilis and men in the middle attack.
They are not visible at the
first glance.
They need some kind of expert setting
in order to become visible.
And the social of science is about
that kind of expert settings.
So to see or not
to see a particular bug is also to
belong or not to belong to a particular
knowledge group.
And sociology of science have
has different strengths.
One strain is proposed
by Merton and it
works that science
was a source of certified knowledge for
the rest of society.
The science was the only source of
knowledge. The other types of knowledge
was not certified.
The Merton would go crazy if
he thought about Harker's,
but.
Fortunately, he didn't have two
other kinds of sociological thoughts
would be proposals was proposed, for
example, by Bruno Latour and he proposed
that technology is society made to
rubble.
And it means that particular design
decisions that were made
or a particular design decisions that
were that seemed to be random,
accidental, eventually
became more and more stable,
more and more constrained
and more and more embedded in the fabric
of society.
For example, if we decide
where do we put our bridges,
if we decide what measures of
our networks are enough
to ensure privacy or security,
we are making long term decisions that
will shape the societies that will
come after us.
My and those approaches
are good and many people are working with
them, with our goods, with
rather interesting results.
But I wish to talk about approach
proposed by Ludwik Fleck,
the Polish sociologist, Polish
philosopher, Polish microbiologist,
and he proposed the notion of what
collective it was in the 1930s.
He published in German,
so perhaps not all of you
might have read about him.
So he proposed that the collective
is a group of people who shared
the similar epistemological approaches.
What do I mean? If I say epistemological
approaches, for example,
if a certain group of people
agree more or less
that something counts as
a good evidence or
something counts as truth
or some methods of achieving
truth are better or more reliable
than other, then perhaps
this group of people might be a
collective.
What is more advanced sign of collective
collective? It would be the ability to
recognize some patterns
that would be invisible to other.
That kind of pattern might be a syphilis
bacteria at the microscope.
That type of pattern might be
many in the middle attack in the cold,
but it's about seeing the pattern
that other group of people would not see.
And learning to see that pattern is also
starting to belonging to that particular
group.
And we are sociologists of science.
We are somewhat different than
our friends from psychology department
or our friends in cognitive science
department because we think that
thinking is a collective endeavor.
We do not really believe that
people think on their own.
We believe that when a particular
individual starts thinking
he or she is thinking with his
or her books, experiences,
histories, biographies and so on, so on
and many more advanced projects,
for example, open source software
or architecture or software or
Wasserman Test to detect
syphilis.
It was a collective endeavor.
And we also think that thinking
involves minds, but also involves
hands and eyes.
Sometimes we do not have the
idea of solution
in our mind.
Sometimes we just come upon it,
you know, with tinkering,
with seeing things in microscopes
or in cold.
So how does it work in practice?
I spent some years
watching and talking and observing
my friends from different hocus-pocus in
Poland and in some neighboring countries,
I gather the data
I got privilege and access
to many parts of their private
or hucking lives.
They talk with me.
Then I gathered this data.
I analyzed it.
The first set of analysis is called
First Stage Coding, and this is looking
for basic patterns, basic biographical
patterns, basic situational
patterns, basing, for example,
group rituals, rather simple
stuff. Then basing on that,
I devised some kind of models.
I test them and eventually
I publish papers.
So this is the classical
sociological route of
work, but some of you might
not know it.
So what about
the laboratory?
So through sociologist of science,
since Merton spent
an awful, awful lot of time in
laboratories because laboratory
for a Modern Society is a special place.
This is the place where not only
science is made,
but this is also a place where future
society is kind of shaped up,
not because in the laboratory we could
devise any kind of knowledge or
not because any kind of truth
could be socially constructed
no matter whatever, but because
many of the decisions made in
laboratories have significant
political consequences.
I'm not only talking about decisions
made in programing communities, but
it also dates back, for example, to
Program Manhattan or the
Wasserman Test for syphilis.
So what is the laboratory
or what makes the hackerspace a special
kind of laboratory?
As a rule of thumb, laboratory
is a kind of separated space
when you could make when
you could make mistakes freely,
the mistakes made in the open society
cost more than mistakes made in
the laboratory.
And laboratory enables you
to kind of limit the space
or time or causes in
order to manipulate them.
Things in the laboratory might happen
faster, might happen slower, might
happen on different scales, for example,
in the scale of microscope on in the
scope of Microsoft's sociological
models.
And you could, for example, limit some
causes.
And in the sociology of science,
sometimes we say that in the laboratory
the first regulations are reverted.
It means that in the outside world
the bacteria are stronger because
they are they are harder to spot.
They are harder to catch.
But in the laboratory, we could limit
them. We could cut,
cut, cut that cut them
in our in our networks and our
instruments.
But what is particular for the
hackerspace or any other kind of
informatics technology laboratory
that in the case of a great laboratory
and hackerspace in silico
is the same as individual.
It means that there isn't
there is very fine line between
theoretical model and
practical application.
For example, in physics, in chemistry,
in biology, computer model
is very much separated that
the wetwork, the bench work, the real
work, whatever you call it.
But in the information security
theoretical model could
be more or less testable
or in many cases could be tested.
As far as you may
say, there are exceptions.
I know about the supercomputers.
I know that not all theoretical
informatics could be tested
on the spot, but as a general
principle, it works more or less
that particular laboratory.
As we know from Thek is often linked
with particular collective
foot collective is a group of
people not sure, as I said,
similar epistemological patterns.
And in the case of hackerspace, that kind
of hacking collective
could be recognized.
For example, with accepting this
principle is to tinker with something,
is to understand something to something.
It doesn't mean we would go
with that
after some, don't worry.
But it comes with kind of cost
because in the observed hacking
communities, uh,
they are often brilliant engineers.
They are often brilliant programmers or
tinkerers.
I couldn't pay more respect to them,
but more often than not, um,
they have some problems with stabilizing
the knowledge.
Often the manuals or
tutorials or documentation
provided by hackers is limited
or in the best case scenario
is often linked to the
direct product.
Hackers do not have much.
Patients or do not have
much do
not put much, much attention
to general principles.
This is the difference from many natural
scientists.
Many natural science scientists are
looking for general rules,
generalizations, whereas
hackers would go for application
for scientists.
Something is true if we could
make our general predictable model.
And for Hocker, something is true
if it works.
Obviously, some engineers would do
differently. Some
some natural sciences artists also
do differently, but we would go
it in a moment.
But if the hackers
have problems with stability of the
products of the hacker space,
what is the most stable product of the
hacker space?
I think that the most stable
product of the hacker space are the
hackers themselves.
Not many products of the hacker space
have the similar amount of documentation
or a similar amount of autonomy
as the hackers.
You code, you do not need much to operate
the hacker, what you need much to operate
the hocking products.
And they are much how to say it from the
sociological point of view, the hackers
are much easier to handle than hacking
products.
But the more comparisons
with natural sciences, if
we I compared the data on the
hacker spaces collected by me in several
hacker spaces in the period of three
years and so on, so on, we have
the data on CERN and
Max Planck Institute collected by
Cardinal Certina and we have some
similarities.
For example, compared with physics,
Harker's more often than not.
What agreed that the knowledge belongs to
the whole community, the
knowledge would be more distributed.
One, and this is not
very surprising because we know that open
source models are open.
Hardware has some similar roots
with physics physics community in CERN.
So the historical argument stands.
But also what is
less obvious is that hackers,
as well as particle physicists,
also like to gossip,
to talk about machines.
We know that many physical instruments
operate more or less or are
rated more or less, and
they have good days and bad days.
Um, they are we do not
always write about it in scientific
papers. But if you remember
about the issues of detection of
Higgs boson and many
false claims or problems with CERN
announcement and their own limitations,
you would see the trace of a of it.
But comparing comparing Harker's with
physics is rather obvious.
We know that there is a hackerspace near
CERN and many of the electronic people
or physics people from CERN are members
of that hackerspace.
It's really nothing new.
But what is more interesting is comparing
Harker's with biologists from Max Planck
Institute is, for example,
some biologists
agree with the classical hucking
stance not to understand
something is to produce that.
You do not have to devise a general
model, you just need to devise the tools
if you are able to manipulate it, then
you understand it.
Other thing would be the recognition of
authorship in our important chunks,
and the third thing would be the
more attention to quick trial and
error cycle in this particular
biological setting.
In the observed period, it was
I'm open to discussion.
Many of the biologists
doing the work, doing the bench work,
doing the laboratory work,
relied on quick trial and error cycle
without doing much formal
calculations, without resolving
much to formal models.
Just unlike the physicists,
physicists, you know, you need a lot
of simulations between before you
put up put on your atlas.
But this is rather interesting
classical sociological stuff.
But let's do something crazy.
Let's reverse the thinking.
We were looking at the hackers
as they were scientists.
We have some differences.
We have some similarities.
But let's look at the hackers,
as are some sort of
social syphilis.
I'm really sorry,
but we know
that syphilis, in the time of Fleck
shown something about the society,
for example, shown that many
of respected middle aged
men were not as faithful
as they claimed to be.
It shows something about the need
of public health care.
It also shows something about who
knows, who really knows something
about small tiny box
in the invisible to other people.
And up to some extent,
and this is a metaphor, you know, I
do not claim that hackers are bacteria.
I also think that hackers
is a kind of but
might act as a bacteria
in a certain settings in a scale
of society
because they revealed some things that
otherwise would be hidden.
And what is also a similarity
is that hackers do not need our
knowledge about the whole system.
They do not need to understand the
whole setting.
Physicists need all the data.
Biologists need all the data.
But syphilis and hackers
need only one access point.
One entry point.
This is obviously classical,
no lateral symmetry between attacker
and defender and hero in training,
treating some hackers as attackers.
But for the sake of metaphor, let it be.
What if
if some kind of hacking
history or history
of hackers or social your hacker
resemble up to some extent
history of syphilis and biologists?
Maybe we could also
think or maybe we would see that
some kind of genetics, genetics
of exploits or
genetics of hacker spaces.
And this is made because people
working on security are working
on different generations of
bugs and evolutions of bugs and
people working on hacker spaces.
Talk about generation of hacker spaces,
for example, Matsoukas.
But also we know
that many of the natural sciences, for
example, chemistry or medical data,
moved to automation discovery systems
based on machine learning.
I would be very much
amazed if some
parties weren't breathing
machine learning systems on exploit and
parts of Patris.
We have automatic discovery systems
on biology.
We have automatic discovery systems in
chemistry, in medical data.
I am almost sure that there is
a beast in the Google
or in the NSA that we that
it's feeding on exploits, that
it's feeding on blog posts
and that it's feeding on this
presentation at this moment.
But here comes
the interesting part.
I said that hackers some half
or sometimes have problems with
stability.
Reports produced by hacker spaces
are less standardized,
standardized than inscriptions
and or reports or scientific papers
presented by the formal
laboratories.
It means that knowledge from the
formal physics laboratory
is much more easier to translate
into machine learning system.
It means that it's easier to standardize
knowledge and it's me,
but on the other hand, as my friend
put it to me, we still feeding
the computers knowledge about the
computers.
So it's the translation part is easier.
So it it goes both ways.
But nevertheless, the issue
of standardization in this
kind in this part,
it's no longer a bug,
it's a feature or it's it's
an issue less
standardized knowledge.
You know, the whole set
of blog posts, tutorials,
YouTube's gossip's CTF
reports, whatever, they do not resemble
scientific papers, but maybe this
is good bye.
Maybe this is what we need.
So I know that
people have found some cure
for syphilis.
It's good,
but I really hope that
and when they found that cure for
syphilis, many of the collectives
collaborated, they emerged, they
changed, they were forced to collaborate.
They need to understand and translate
from one mode of thinking, one
mode of knowledge production to another.
They learned to talk to each other and
they created something bigger.
I really hope that some hackers
would start up
or will continue translating
to them to other types of
knowledge production, for example,
knowledge production. But journalists, we
know that it is acquiring the knowledge
production by the academic people.
We know that is it's acquiring and so on
and so on.
And the last thing I really hope
not unlike the syphilis
and unlike the history of FLAC,
I really hope that Hawking would not be
cured.
Because we do not need the syphilis, but
we need the hackers, and
I really wish on this point,
um, I really wish to
express my sincere gratitude to all
the participants of my study for
the three years I observed you and
you granted me the privilege to be
observed. You agree
to give interviews.
And I am really grateful for that.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Martin, fire talk
and all your insights, we luckily have
five minutes left for questions and
answers. So if you have any questions,
please move to the microphones that we
have throughout the room, please.
Your first question,
please move close microphone this
working.
Yeah, it is. OK, so in your
experience doing this research, did you
ever find hackers in a research lab?
And if you found any positive effect
of this and if not and you ran
a simulation in your head, what do you
think would be a positive outcome of
having hackers in a research lab?
I've run into several accounts,
for example, during this Congress.
One, people have two affiliations.
They were affiliated in particular
hacking collective, and at the same time,
they were active in the academic field.
We know that that people exist.
Um, I haven't met
many of them, but I met several
scientists, turned hackers or
hackers learning some things from
science.
And I think this is beneficial.
If you are more interested in that,
please look into my papers about hacking
collective as a trading zone.
I have a special part of
research done on the translation
intergroup issues.
Thank you very much.
Second question, um, you said
that hackers are
like syphilis through to the society
and I'm sorry, but I didn't understand
in which radio the syphilis.
Can you repeat it?
Yeah, of course.
This is a metaphor.
Uh, I really
like the hackers sometime
in some sense act as a
syphilis because
first of all, they reveal
some things about society
that others otherwise would be hidden.
Second, in order to see
the actions of
the hackers, you need a different
collective.
And what is peculiar, I haven't talked
much about it, but this is
the moment. In some cases,
the same people that are reacting
would be the same. Collect the
collective.
That would be the cause.
And this is characteristic for hackers
because some actions done by the
hackers could only be understood
within the hacking community.
So that that is the extent of metaphor,
this is not about causing harm
or any kind of negative
stereotypes connected with Hocker.
Thank you. Do we have any other
questions? We still have some time left.
So if you have a question or comment,
feel free to move to one of the
microphones.
It seems to me that this is not the case,
so please give another warm round of
applause to Martin. Thank you very much
for your talk.