*36C3 Preroll music*
Herald: Two speakers, that are on stage today are both anthropologists and they
are both experts on hacking culture. Today also, they launched a website HackCur.io.
And which is also the name of the talk 'hack_curio, decoding the Cultures of
Hacking'. One video at a time. I welcome Gabriella, a.k.a. Biella Coleman and
Paula Bialski.
*Applause*
Paula Belsky : Hello. Hello. Yes, good evening. CCC is so lovely to be here. We
are super excited to stand before you here today and present a project we've been
working on for the past year or so.
Biella: Would not have been finished if it were not for
this talk. Paula: Exactly. Biella: So thank you.
Paula: Exactly. Thanks for forcing us to stand before you
and get away from our desks. Here's a drink, some wine, have some 11:30 PM
discussion with you and there's no better place to launch the project that
we're gonna show you then at the CCC. So we're super excited to be here. Let's
start with the very basics. What is hack_curio? What is it that you guys are
gonna see in the next hour or so? Hack_curio is a web shot site featuring
short video clips all related to computer hackers. Now a bit a bit of background. My
name is Paula Bialski and I am a sociologist. I'm an ethnographer of hacker
cultures. I study corporate hacker developers. And for those of you who don't
know Biella Coleman. Biella: I'm an anthropologist.
I also study computer hackers. And we, along with Chris Kelty, have helped to put
this Website together. Paula: Exactly. And in
the past year, we've decided to come together and bring all sorts of clips from
public talks, from documentaries, from Hollywood films, mems, advertising, all
sorts of sources. We've brought together these videos that also come together
short descriptions by authors, by scholars, by journalists, by people who
know something about hacker cultures. And we brought that together all in one place.
So call it a museum, call it a compendium, call it a web site. And it's a place for
you to really pay homage to you guys, because hackers come in all shapes and
sizes. What it means to hack, might mean something to you, but might mean something
very different to you. And we decided as anthropologists, we think it's very
important to represent a certain culture in a certain way. We're not just hackers
in hoodies. It's a really diverse culture. So we're going to talk about that today.
Biella: All right. So like, how did this project come into being? Like, why are we here?
Why did we spend the last year doing this? Well, you know, first of all, it wasn't
created. I didn't create it because I had this idea in mind. It was created because
I started to collect videos for a reason. I'm a professor and I twice a week stand
in front of students who are on the Internet, on Facebook, maybe buying shoes.
And it's really hard to get their attention. And you know, what I found
using videos in class was an amazing way to get them off Facebook and paying
attention to what to me. Right. So over the years, I just collected a lot of
videos. Right. Video after video after video after video. And in certain
point. I was like, you know, I have this private collection, semi private
collection they use in class. Why don't I transform it into a public resource and
more so as someone who studied hackers for many years, why don't I kind of make it
into a collaborative project? Why don't I tap into the kind of expertise that exists
among hackers and journalists and researchers and academics and draw them
in? And so I decided to do that right. Until about a year and a half ago, I
brought together a couple of other people like Paula, Chris Kelty, who's another
curator. And I said, like, let's get this going. So when we were kind of fashioning
the project, we were also thinking like, what are we trying to do with this project?
Right. You're not my students. I don't see you twice a week. And so we came up with
some goals and we don't know if we're gonna achieve these goals. The site
literally is going live like right now. But this is what we're trying to do with a
project. We're trying to chip away at simplistic conceptions and stereotypes of
hackers. We know these exist. Can we chip away at them? Right. We want to offer new
perspectives on what hackers have actually done and what they do. A really important
thing which Paula has already kind of mentioned is showcase the diversity of
hacking. Right. People who do block chain and free software and security. And
there's there's similarities, but there's also differences like let's try to show
this. And while this is not an archive, this is not the Internet Archive. We are
trying to kind of preserve bits and bytes of hacker history. So these are the four
goals. And we do feel that video. Right, is a nice medium, a mechanism to achieve
these four goals. It's persuasive, it's compelling, it's memorable. It's fun. Like
we like to waste time at work on video. Right. So we're like, hey, let's add a
little persuasive punch to Tex. And this is why we decided to do it this way.
Paula: Exactly. So what happens when you click on the site today and how is it organized? We
want to show you a little bit of of the actual architecture of the site itself. So
we got. When you click on the Web site, you see as... you see certain categories,
we've grouped the videos in two different categories because as you say, there's a
huge diversity. So you can see here, Biella is lovely here, pointing out the
beautiful categories. We've got anti security hackers, block chain hackers.
We've got free and open the software, we've got phreaking, we've got hacker
depictions. You can look at all sorts of sort of different categories. You go onto
a category, website site and then you have a blurb about what this subculture of
hacking is all about or what this what the aim is, exactly what the theme is. And
then you have all sorts of little videos that last maybe 30 seconds, maybe a few
minutes. And under these videos, you would look at the video and then you would have
a little bit of a blurb. It's not an essay. It's not a book. It's not some
boring academic text. It's supposed to be funny. It's supposed to be for your
grandmother's to read. It's supposed to be actually accessible and understandable.
Right. So you have the video and the actual text itself. Right. So this is how
it looks like. And this is maybe some sample of our content itself. What do we
have? We've got 42 entries at the moment which we've collected from, as I said,
various different academics with different authors. And by the end of 2020, we would
love to have around 100, 100 entries and we'd try to publish around 50 or 20
entries. Biella: after that. Because it's really brutally hard to edit academics. Paula: Exactly.
Exactly. And so we've got what you'll find. These are just some examples. We'll
get into some really of the videos in just a moment. But for example, you would look
at hackers and engineers humming at the Internet Engineering Task Force, or you
look at an entry that's about the programing legend, of course, Grace Hopper
being interviewed by a clue, David Letterman. Maybe you guys have seen this
video, a block chain ad that people see it or you'd say you'd ask, is this real? It's
kind of wacky ad or is it parody? And when you watch you, you have to know that this
is actually real. The actor Robert Redford showing off his mad social engineering
skills with the help of cakes and balloons or how to make sense of why algerien hacker
Hamza Bender Lodge dressed by U.S. government smiles and how many people from
Algeria understand his grin. So this kind of various diversity of really what
hacking is really all about. Biella: But but we're here to get the video party started.
Paula: Exact right. *From audience*: Exactly!
Finaly. Fine. Let's get started. Yeah. Biella: with a little Background. Paula: Exactly. Exactly.
Ok. So which I'm going to start with the day. You start. You start. Biella: All
right. So we thought it would be a good idea to start with phone phreaking,
because phone phreaking really developed at the same time. If not kind of before
computer hacking. And we're going to show Joy Bubbles. Joe Ingrassia, who is, you
know, often considered to be the grandfather of phone phreaking. So let's
go to a video. *Text from Video* Speaker1: In the
days when calls went through, the operators phreaking wasn't possible. But as
humans switchboards were replaced by mechanical systems, different noises were
used to trigger the switches.
*Whistling*
If you'd had perfect pitch like blind phone free Joe
Ingrassia, you could whistle calls through the network. Joe: Let's see if I make it this time. This is really hard
to do, it sounded like all the tones were present, so the phone should be ringing a bell. Now. Okay.
I get the phone, it just take a little while... Speaker1: He even showed
off his skills at the local media. Speaker2: From his one phone to a town in Illinois and back
to his other phone, a thousand miles phone call by whistling. Joe Ingrassia....
Biella: right? Very cool, right? So Joe Ingrassia
is featured. And Joan Donovan, who is like a mad researcher at Harvard University,
wrote a really awesome entry about that. No, of course, she emphasizes things like,
you know, while hacking is often tied to computers, it's often tied to any system
that you could understand, improve, fix, undermine. And the phreakers really showed
that. Right. And of course, the history of phone phreaking is about blind kids. Not
everyone who is a freak was blind, but many of them were. They met each other in
camp and kind of exchanged information. And that was one of the ways in which
phone phreaking grew. Phone phreaking really grew as well. When a big article in
1971 was published by Roone Rosin Bomb in Esquire magazine, who has read that
article? Is anyone? It's incredible. We mentioned it, I think, in a piece. Check
it out. Phreaking freaking exploded after that article. The spelling phreaking
changed from Capital F Freak to Ph. Because of that article, phreaking also
grew when blue boxes were created. Right. This is also something that Joan writes
about in her entry. One of the cool things that Joan writes about and then I'm going
to turn it over to Paula again is that some phreaks train birds, OK, to freaking
phreak. Let's just leave it at that, because that's pretty cool. All right.
Paula: OK. Are you guys ready now to cringe? There we need a little bit of a
cringing moment as well. So without further ado, this is Steve Ballmer that
would like to do some dancing. Biella: From Microsoft. You just don't know.
*Music*
Paula: OK. Yeah, that's right. Biella: I just want to say one little
thing. Paula: Yeah, of course there's a remix of this with goats screaming like, look it
up. It's awesome. Paula: Exactly. But why do we show Steve Ballmer the sort of like Godfather?
Exactly. Kind of an anti hacker of sorts. I myself am a staff who've worked
among a corporate culture of software developers. Aren't hackers per se? But if
you think of a figure like Steve Ballmer, a lot of you guys who perhaps identify
yourself as hackers, you have day jobs, you go to work and you have to make some
money in order to live and do work on your own projects. And you often have to face
sort of mini Steve Ballmers at work. And this is a quote that I have my own entry
that I did right next to this video. Steve Ballmer, even Ballmers unbridled display
of exuberance is exceptional. Many software developers will have to deal with
Mini Steve Ballmers every day. Biella: We are sorry that you do. But If you do - you do.
Paula: Exactly. And so this but this exuberance is
all about these sort of slogans of win big, save the world while building
technology, be awesome, be true, whatever it is your corporate slogan is. And
there is, I think, the way in which the software developer and sort of the hackers
that work in their day jobs challenge this sort of really intense exuberance of
wearing your corporate T-shirt and smiling every day in a way in which you hack your
daily projects, you work on your own private projects on the side. You actually
do have many acts of resistance in a way to this kind of loud, massive exuberance.
And I talk about these sort of side line mini hacks that happen on an everyday
corporate culture. Biella: Check out your entry. It's really
funny. All right. So now we're going to hacktivists. So who here has heard of
Phineas Fisher? All right. Awesome. Just in case, for those who are watching the
video now or later, I'm going to give a little bit of background. But I love this
video about Phineas Fisher because he's explained what he or the group has done,
but he also does kind of a very clever media hack. So for those that don't know
who Phineas Fisher, is he or the group is a hacktivists that claims to be inspired by
Anonymous, says Jeremy Hammond. He's hacked into various corporations from
FinFisher to hacking team. And what he did was take documents, take e-mail and then
publish them. And these were important in ways that I'll talk about in a moment.
He's donated, I think, stolen bitcoins to rush over government. In this fall.
He published a manifesto kind of calling for public interest hacking and claims he
would give one hundred thousand dollars to anyone who does this. So now I'm going to
show the first and I believe only interview that he has done. And he did
this with Vise News a couple of years ago. *Video starts*
Let's do this. These are the exact words from our live text exchange, voiced by one
of my colleagues. Colleage: So why did you hack hacking
team? Cermet: Well, I just for the citizen lab
reports on FinFisher and hacking team and thought, that's fucked up. And I hacked
them. Colleage: What was the goal on hacking the
hacking team data? Were you tried to stop them? Cermet: For the locals. I don't really
expect leaking data to stop a company, but hopefully can at least set them back a bit
and give some breathing room to the people being targeted with their software.
*Video ends* Biella: OK, so this does not yet exist on
Hack_Curio. I have to write the entry, but because I was so busy getting
the other site in preparation, I haven't done it, but it will happen in the next
few weeks. But what I love about this video is, first of all, he's like hacking
media representations. Right? I mean, even when awesome journalists like Motherboard
publish on hackers or other kind of entities, they still kind of use a masked
hacker even once they published about FinFisher and they put like a mask on him.
And it's like hackers have heat, like they don't need a mask. Right. And there is
this this sense where there's always a kind of demonic, masked figure. And he was
like, OK, I'll do this interview, but you have to represent me as like a lovable
Muppet like figure. Right? So he's there hacking the media. But what's also really
interesting in it. And you watch the full video, it's kind of amazing. Is that, you
know, he kind of claims, oh, I didn't have much of in fact, I don't think he could do
anything, but in fact, first of all, the information that was released really
reaffirms what people suspected. For example, and in the case of hacking team
who was selling problematic exploit spyware to dictatorial regimes. We really
got a confirmation that this was happening. And in fact, eventually hacking
team even lost her license. Right. This was like a direct effect from what
FinFischer did. So really, it's it's a kind of amazing video that showcases what
he was doing, his reasoning, and then was a performance, literally, a puppet that
hacked the media. OK, so now we're going to rewind a little bit and go back in
time. So a lot of hackers care about cryptography. Right? And ever since the
cipher punks. And since that period, there have been projects from TOR to Signal that
have enabled cryptography. That has been really important for human rights
activists and others. But one of the great, great kind of encryption projects
came from this fellow, Tim Jenkins, who here in the room has heard of Tim Jenkins.
OK. This is amazing. This is why we're doing kind of hack_curio. So Tim Jenkins is
from South Africa. And beginning in 1988, secret messages were sent and received
regularly across South Africa borders using an encrypted telematics system
assembling assemble during the final years of the South African liberation struggle
and Tim Jenkins, along with Ronnie Press, who has since passed away, created
the system. And Tim Jenkins was kind of like a phone phreak. And that was one of
the reasons, like he was good at working with phones. And what was amazing about
this system, which was part of Operation Vula, was that allowed people in South
Africa to communicate with leaders in exile - in London. Right? And Tim Jenkin
created this system. I'm going to show a video about it in a moment. And Sophie
Dupin has written a terrific entry. The reason why we have him with the key there
was that like, you know, the South African apartheid government did not really like
Tim Jenkins, so they threw him in jail. Well, a lot of hackers lock pick. He
actually created 10 wooden keys secretly in the wooden shop and broke out of jail.
I mean, talk about like taking lock picking to like another sort of level. All
right. So let's listen and see the video about this incredible program.
*Video starts* Tim Jenkin: After we sent in the first
computer. We expect things to start immediately, but it actually took a couple
of weeks. And then suddenly one day I was sitting at my desk and the telephone
answering machine suddenly started roaring and I thought, this must be the
wrong number or something. But then, sure enough, I heard the distinctive tone of
the messages and I could hear this thing coming through the tape. *Modem 14.5k*
*sound* Word, and word, and word. And then it stopped and I loaded the message
onto my computer. In fact, it was a report from Matt. And sure enough, there was our
first message. Absolutely perfect. *sound of a*
*printer working* *Video ends*
Biella: Ah, fax machine. OK. So this is from the entry by Sophie Dupin, who is writing a
dissertation on this topic. The international hacker community has since
taken notice of Tim Jenkins and the Vula encrypted communication system that
embodies so many qualities often associated with exceptional, with an
exceptional hack. Elegant, clever, usable and pragmatic. Right? Jenkins has been
invited to speak at the Berlin Logan Symposium in 2016 and to lock picking
communities in the Netherlands and the United States. In 2018 the RSA Security
Conference gave Jenkin the first award for excellence in humanitarian service. So
just like one last thing, this is a good reminder that histories of computer
hacking are often skewed. They often actually start with the United States.
When, for example, in Europe with the CCC, that story's been told in bits and pieces,
but deserves a much longer or much larger showcase. And actually this example also
shows that, for example, the history of encryption when it comes to communication
didn't even necessarily start in the United States. Right? And so it's really,
really important to kind of showcase these histories that haven't been told
elsewhere. Paula: So maybe by now you're kind of
getting at the fact that we see hacking as a diverse practice. Hackers as a diverse
group of people who do different things. And at the moment we're going I want to
come back to the ways in which hackers challenge power through challenging really
the very stereotype of what gender means and challenging, really gender politics.
And it will start to turn to this topic by looking at an entry that a woman named
Christina Dunbar Hester has done on a woman named Naomi Cedar. And some of you
probably know Naomi Cedar. This is part of her entry. And she wrote, Naomi Cedar is a
programmer and core participant in the Python programing language community. As a
trans identified person, Cedar grappled with whether she would have to give up
everything in order to transition and whether the community would accept her for
doing so. So let's watch a clip of the video and let's see how Naomi Cedar challenge that.
Biella: I think she gave this talk at PyCon, the Python Open Source Developer
conference, and it's really incredible talk. I really encourage you to watch the
whole talk. But this is a question. This is the moment where she's like, do I have
to leave the community or can I transition in the community?
Paula: Exactly. So let's watch a tiny clip.
*clip starts* I decided that to do that would probably
mean giving up everything. Remember, back at 13, I had absorbed this into my brain
that the only way you were going to get out of this was to basically leave
everything. And this was a very painful thing to think about. But like a lot of
trans people, I had come to the point where even if I lost everything, that was
fine. So I started to think about other alternatives here. I had toyed with the
idea of doing the education summit as a farewell thing to the community. I would
do it and then disappear, go into the witness protection program. The
only problem was I actually started accelerating the pace of my transition
because, well, it was just such freaky relief to start moving in that direction
that that wouldn't work. So I actually thought about what was for me hacking back
to Laverne Cox, a very revolutionary idea. What if I just did it and was open about
it? First thing I looked at codes of conduct. I looked for specifics. What
happens to me if there is a problem? If I am harassed? This was important to me.
Other thing I did was I started telling a few people Jesse Nola, Avi Alaska. Some
people I would work with PyCon on and they were all pretty cool with the idea. And
the more I talked about it, the more I decided that I would go ahead and take
that chance. So I did. I started by teaching at some Python workshops for
women. I spoke at some conferences. We went to PyCon . It was good. The education
summit was fine. Okay. Some of the people I worked with in organizing it were a
little bit confused when the names on the emails changed. I apologize, but in
general it went pretty well. In fact, the more open I was, the easier it was on. It
was for me because I didn't have to worry about being outed. And it was easier for
other people because they certainly knew what to expect. The other interesting
sidelight is that when I told people they sometimes felt an obligation to share some
deep, dark secret about themselves, like I kind of thrump them and they had to answer
back. So my takeaway here is that, we talk a lot about diversity and that's real. So
we should be ending on this point, except that I'm a contrarian in my old age.
So it is not quite all rainbows and unicorns or as you might put it, this is
kind of common in social justice circles right now. We don't get a cookie.
*Video ends* Paula: All right. And yeah, yeah,
*Paula and Biella are applauding * Biella: He's a very powerful player.
Paula: Exactly. And I guess we could also say that the next if I want to show that
after the entry by Christina Dunbar Hester, Naomi Cedar actually gave a response
to this entry, which we've also published, which we also want to do. We want to have
a discussion between some of the responses to the actual very areas.
Biella: So we actually wanted to quote it in full.
Paula: Yeah, exactly. So perhaps. Let's read, let's read this this section from
the response of Naomi Cedar. PyCon itself has continued to evolve into an ever more
diverse place with an ever stronger representation of queer folks, people of
color, people who speak different languages, etc. Codes of conduct are
nearly universal these days, and more often than not, communities insist that
they be well crafted and meaningful and backed up by real enforcement. Even in
these retrograde times of official attacks on the rights of so many groups, we have
come a long way. But just as I said five years ago, it's still not all rainbows and
unicorns. Too many groups throughout the open source world globally are making only
token efforts to foster inclusion. And in my opinion, too many members of privileged
groups tend to focus on supervisual or cosmetic changes rather than addressing
the underlying fundamental issues. Marginalized groups face. It doesn't take
a bit away from how far we've come to also acknowledge how much we still have to do.
Naomi Cedar. So this really part we wanted to discuss this in the way in which
hacking is also a practice of challenging power, challenging stereotypes and
challenging really gender norms in many ways. All right, let's move on.
Biella: All right. So the final frontier. We have three more videos to show. Before
we get to the Q and A. In all videos relate to geopolitics and hacking. You
know, hacking has always been political in some fashion, if for no other reason than
sometimes laws are challenged. You're you're doing what you're doing, something
that someone doesn't want you to do. Right. But there's only been certain
moments, where nation states have been interested in hacking or there have been
sort of ways in which nation states have used hacking. For example, recently in
order to kind of engage in international politics. So we're going to kind of focus
on these last, the last three videos will focus on these issues. We're at the CCC.
So of course, I wanted to show a video related to CCC. Unfortunately, I don't have
one related to the German CCC. Please do send good videos related to the CCC to me.
But I am going to show one related to the FCCC established in Lion by Jean-Bernard
Condat. So do people know what the F stands for? All right. What
does it stand for? One Auditor: French? Biella: French.
OK. Once you see the video. Oh no. Hold on. You will also see that it stands
for fake and fuck as well, because basically the French chapter of the CCC
was established in part to try to entrap hackers in order to kind of work for the
French government. It's a fascinating story that's been told in bits and pieces
and I'm going to say a little bit more about it. But now I'm going to show a clip
from a French documentary that kind of, you know, charts a little bit of that
history. It's in French with subtitles.
*Video is in progress*
Biella: OK. So pretty incredible, right? And this story has been told in bits and
pieces by French journalists. I'm working with another French journalist to
try to kind of uncover the fuller history, as well tell the story of kind of American
and European hackers who did not get recruited by intelligence, but who
nevertheless came from the underground, because they were breaking into systems,
not maliciously, but they learned a lot and they had really valuable knowledge
that no one else had. I mean, it's kind of really incredible, right? And, you know,
this history, whether it's just that the transformation of the underground into
security hackers or in the case of France, where some portion of people were tapped
to work for intelligence informally, formerly with pressure. Right. Has yet to
be written. And there's many remarkable elements about this. But basically, I do
think it's remarkable that it's a bunch of kind of amateurs who just were obsessed
with with networks who were the ones holding the special knowledge that were
needed, that was needed by corporations and intelligence in order to start
securing systems. Right. The other kind of really interesting thing is that some of
the best underground non malicious hacker crews were European. TESO, which had a lot
of Austrian and German members. ADM, which is from France, was considered to be the
best at exploit writing. Rights. So the entry, which I'm going to write with a
French journalist is going to reflect on this. And this is actually a big project
that I'm working on as well. So I'll have more to say about it later. All right. So
going from the past to the present. Paula: Exactly. And I guess we couldn't
talk to you politics and hacking without talking about Trump, talking about Putin.
A slew of politicians that we know in recent years has used the hacker for their
own political discourse, for their somehow political gain. And with this next video
will show us just that. This is our hacker depictions section. It was posted by a
scholar named Marietta Brezovich. So without further ado, let's listen to the
way in which Putin sees the hacker.
*Video is in Progress*
Paula: So I don't know if Putin was reading a Russian Hacker for the night. Biella: best image
of the night. Possibly. I don't know. Paula: We weren't sure if Putin is reading
Paul Graham's Hackers & Painters on the toilet or some of his other Hacker
cultures literature. But it seems like he's getting something right. Right. We
kind of think, hey, you kind of got it. It's not hackers actually.
Biella: well, except for one part. Paula: Exactly. That's what we want to
say. In some ways, yes. It's true. The hackers are artistic and creative, etc.
Biella: They just don't wake up early in the morning.
Paula: Exactly. Maybe they don't wake up early in the morning. But what's
important, I think in here and this is also what Brezovich points out in her
entry, is that he uses this, of course, for his political gain to show that he is
not influencing any hackers or any technologists, who maybe identify as
hackers or not. He's not influencing them. And because they are so free and artistic
and sort of living in their sort of creative world that they're beyond his control.
Right? So partially it's true. But partially he's gonna employing this to
make a political statement about his non involvement with any sort of role.
Biella: And what's interesting is all evidence points to the fact that that
technologists who did the hacking just work at intelligence organizations.
Paula: Exactly. Biella: All right. So we just had one more
video and we'll end on a positive note. Right? A lot of stuff around hackers is
sometimes depressing, especially when it comes to the law. They get arrested, they
get thrown in jail. They commit suicide. Paula: True.
Biella: And so we want to showcase a video that covers British and Finnish hacker
Lauri Love, who's presented here at the CCC. Some of you may know that he face
extradition to the United States due to his alleged involvement with Anonymous
operation called #OpLastResort, which was kind of in support of Aaron Swartz, who
had committed suicide when he was facing many criminal charges. And we'll watch a
clip where parliamentarians and others debate his case.
*Video proceedes*
A young man with Asperger's syndrome
awaits extradition to the United States, facing charges of computer hacking and is
then likely to kill himself. It sounds familiar. He's not, of course, Gary
McKinnon, who is saved by the prime minister. But Lauri Love, who faces, in
a fact, a death sentence. So when the prime minister introduced the form above
to, in her words, provide greater safeguards for individuals, surely she
expensed it to protect the vulnerable, like Gary McKinnon, like Lauri Love. The
honorable gentleman. My honorable friend obviously campaigned long and hard for
Gary McKinnon. And obviously I took that decision because at that time it was a
decision for the home secretary to decide whether there was a human rights case for
an individual not to be extradited. We subsequently changed the legal position on
that. So this is now a matter for the courts. There are certain parameters that
the courts look at in terms of the extradition decision, and that is then
passed to the home secretary. But it is for the courts to determine the human
rights aspects of any case that comes forward. It was right, I think, to
introduce the form box, to make sure that there was that challenge for cases here in
the United Kingdom, as to whether they should be held here in the United Kingdom.
But the legal process is very clear and the home secretary is part of that legal
process. Biella: OK, so the author of the entry,
Naomi Colvin, is right there in front. And she has a great sentence which
says in Lauri Love, the U.S. had definitively chosen the wrong target
principle, passionate and articulate, certainly more articulate than Theresa May
herself in the clip which accompanies this article, Love versus USA would be one for
the underdog. And it was Love one. He's not being extradited. And in part, it was
also because Naomi Colvin was part of the team that stopped it. So let's thank Naomi
as well as. *Applause* And it's just really important to document some of the
wins every once in a while. So do check. Check that out. So we are now going to
wrap up said that there's going to be 10 minutes for Q and A, but a few final
reflections about this project. Paula: So I think these videos show actual
hackers and hackings and at a more level meta level demonstrated how hackers have
become central to our popular imagination. How hackers and hacking are one medium to
think through digital cultures, to think through politics. I mean, we care about
culture. We care about representing digging deep, looking at various angles of
a certain culture. And I think that's the purpose. Where I see this is the purpose
of Biella and mine, and Chris', and our friends projects is that we really want to take
the work that we've been doing and really pay tribute to this really huge, diverse
community that that you are. Biella: On a more practical level being a
little less meta. We do hope that people assign hack_curio entries in their
courses. You could use them in high school. You can use them in college
classes. You know, heck, you know, maybe you could even use them in middle school,
elementary. I don't know if that will work. But get it out there. And also for
some of you, I think it will be fun to look at different tidbits of hacker
history. And when you're at home for the holidays before you come to the CCC and
you're like, man, my parents don't really understand what I do. So you could fire up
a video that kind of represents what you do and fire up another video that
represents what you don't do. Paula: And have a discussion. Haven't
especially. Biella: And so this is our last slide.
What next? The site is Life. Share It. Our Twitter address is up there. We consider
this a soft launch. We have 42 entries, but we'll get some feedback and tweet
things, send video suggestions, spread the word. And to end before Q and A. We just
really want to thank the CCC. We want to thank Lisa for having us here. This is
really an amazing place to launch. And we also want to thank everyone who made this
possible from funding to the authors to the entire hack_curio team. So thank you
so much. And we're here for a little Q & A. *Applause*
Herald: Thanks a lot for this beautiful talk. We are now open for the
question. Mics. If there's any questions from the audience, please just stand up to
one of the mics. Paula: Don't be shy. Herald: Nobody is more interested in hacking culture? Are
you overwhelmed? Paula: Someone.
Herald: Yeah. There's someone on mic 1. Please.
Mic1: Thank you for this talk and for the energy that was in your talk. It was just
amazing! I have one question to ask. What was like the... way more like
surprising moments for you in this, like, research journey.
Paula: OK, that's a good question. Biella: I mean. In terms of the
project, you know, collaborating with others and building a Web site is very
different than what academics often do, where we do often have to rely on
ourselves and we get feedback. You know what I mean? And I think it does give a
sense of the really beautiful relations that form, where you go back and forth
with an author, with a web developer. You know, it really does give you a sense of
the deep social ties that we do have as academics. But I think it's much, much
deeper with hackers. That's one thing. But I do think I mean, I am frustrated as an
academic, where a lot of people do have very, very, very narrow conceptions of
hackers. It's not a perfect world. And there's a lot which, you know, we can
change. There is very clear also that as academics, we weren't necessarily changing
perceptions so much. And this project was an effort to finally do that. It's like
see them like stop listening or reading just my words, because obviously that's
not really changing chat, you know, so come see some of the videos. Yeah.
Paula: Yeah. And I guess for me, I also mean, if you work in your own little
bubble and you work in your own little corner, just in any type of science, you
don't see as much as what's going on out of there. And I for me, the whole
definition of what it is to hack what a hacker actually is, you start really
opening your eyes out when you see while there's 50 hundred other scholars out
there that are actually think that a hacker is this or hackers that. And I
think for me, that opened my eyes up really saying, hey, well, this is what you
think it means. So interesting know. Herald: Thank you. Now a question from
mic 2, too, please. Mic2: Hi, thank you for the talk. It was
very enlightening. I have two questions. The first one would be, could you tell us
maybe a bit more about the server and infrastructure you using or are you just
linking YouTube videos? And the second one would be, how would you envision future
engagement with students? Because I'm teaching a course for computer scientists
undergrads. And we did something similar around movies and descriptions
that they have to make around hacker movies. And they don't really learn how to
reflect on social issues a lot in the studies. So I wonder how does this could
be integrated into platform and how that could how you could engage students further?
Biella: So great questions. I mean, first of all, for the Web site, it runs on
WordPress. It just seemed like an easy way to, like, hack it up for this sort of
thing. And we hired actually a master student from my department at McGill
University. Thanks to all. You're awesome. And then we're hosting the videos on Vimeo
and they come from all sorts of different places. That's actually not the best or
the most ideal solution. And so far as like, you know, who knows if Vimeo is
going to exist in 15 years? Right. Internet Archive. We looked into them and
they were kind of like psyched about it, that it was going to be slower to deliver
the video. Right? So maybe if the project grows, we can at a certain point host our
own videos. Right? But like we'll have to sort of graduate there at the next level.
The entries are all going to be creative comments and we're using clips that then we
cite the entire clip and where it came from. We consider this fair use and for
those that may be wondering. And so we'll see how that goes.
Paula: And for the second, I guess I could take the second question. When ever I
mean, my students are not their digital media students. They're not from computing
science. But if you ever even try to touch along something around culture or
something, maybe real social science is always, I think, ask how is power really
how these people relate to power? How did they relate to critique? How do they use
these tools to critique something? And I think all of these videos and maybe even
the videos that your students chose, if they just asked that question, whether
they're studying computing science, whether they're studying geography or
whatever it is, if they look at it from a form of power and how it's contested, I
think that that's a way in which they they really can engage into a certain topic
really deeply. That's cool. There's a nice little text by Fuko with what's called
what is critique. That's it. I use it for my students that are non maybe cultural
studies students or whatever. And there's a nice little text that could be with
Herald: Thank you. One more question from
mic 2, please. Mic2: So thank you again. And I wanted
to ask you, because I looked at the videos on the site and I see a lot of stories of
single people and I'm quite surprised to find very little stories of communities
and showcases of hacker spaces. And a lot of researchers I've spoke about are
actually focusing on like how communities work. So was there any conscious decision
that you want to tell singular people, singular person stories instead of
like communities? Biella: First of all, it's a great piece
of feedback because I mean, one of the things as an anthropologist that I've
always loved about the hacker world is on the one hand, you know, people often talk
about rights that are are tied to notions of individualism. But hacking is so
collectivist. Right. I mean, look at the CCC. I mean, you can't have a better
example of a kind of ritual, collective, effervescent experience, hacker spaces.
Right. So I do think it's really important to try to showcase that. And we do, we do
have videos around hacker spaces and they're being written up like the authors
are writing about them now. But if that's not coming through the sites, we actually
need to write. But it does show I mean, one of the problems with video and we and
we will reflect on this is that on the one hand, while you could put a face to
hacking, which is great. It's like it's not the hooded person video has its own
limits. Right? Often it's an individual. It's often what journalists are interested
in. And we also have to make sure that this isn't the whole of hacking and also
at times use the video to tell a different story than what the video is showing. So I
think that's a great comment. And we're going to keep that in mind because to me,
the collectivist community, part of hacking. Is one of the most amazing parts
that never makes it into kind of mainstream representation.
Paula: That's right. Thank you. Herald: Thank you.
Herald: Then we have a question from the
Internet. First Internet. Biella: Internet. Tell us. Talk to us.
Signal Angel: That question from the Internet is: when covering international scenes, scenes
like Phrack magazine use as source material. Biella: Is Phrack magazine a source?
Signal Angel: Yeah. Biella: Yeah. I mean, Phrack magazine.
Remember the video that I showed around the fake French CCC? That is a larger
project around how parts of the underground went pro and started doing
security work. And Phrack is amazing. I mean, Phrack tells so much of that story.
And what is also so interesting, because I've done like almost 26 interviews, in-
depth interviews around on this. And like you'd expect in many hacker circles,
there's a lot of diversity of opinions. And the one thing that people agree on was
that like Phrack was awesome, technically. And it brought very different types of
people together. You know, Phrack hasn't come up in the video because it's one of
these things that hasn't been documented. Right? So much in documentaries or film.
And again, it points to that problem, which is on the one hand, we're trying to
show the faces of hacking. But we also have to make very, very clear, that
there's certain parts of hacker history that don't exist in video and don't take
this as the definitive sort of word or record.
Herald: Now the question from microphone 2, please.
Mic2: Hi, I'm... I was wondering, whether you plan to expand your
categories. If I didn't miss anything to something for example as in my PhD.
Examples of hacking connected with biology, genetics and digital fabrication,
neuro-hacking and so on. Biella: Ja.
Mic2.: So here that the CCC does a track dedicated to science that I think it's
somehow related. Thanks. Biella: Great. Yeah. So if I can come
correctly, I think we have 11 categories and we absolutely are expanding and like
bio hacking is one that we want include because actually, you know, hackers are
like creating insulin in the context of the United States, where insulin is
ridiculously expensive, like some of the most important hacking I think is
happening. So we're absolutely going to expand by a handful. We also don't want to
go much more beyond 15 or 18. And one of the ways that we're also then handling
that is that each entry comes with tags and then there's gonna be other groupings
around tags. But it's certainly I mean, what you've seen is alive. It's alive, it's
alive, but it's also very much beta, you know.
Paula: And it and if you've written also on this topic and you have an interesting
video, please email us, send it over. We'd be really interested to hear about your
research. Yeah. Yeah. Herald: And then we have another question
on mic 1, please. Mic1: Thank you. Thank you.
My question is for Biella. And it's about would you say that your
work be done on Anonymous affected the way you engage with working with video
after going deep into seeing, how Anonymous uses video as a medium to engage
with the public as compared to other activist groups who are way less
successful in that? Biella: That's great. I mean, that is
definitely, you know, I on the one hand always use video in my class. And it's not
just like hackers. You know, if I'm talking about Martin Luther King and
something he said, I will show a video of what he said. Because having me repeat it
versus having MLK on the screen it's a lot more persuasive. And we are in a moment
where truth is not winning the game and we have to think about our game of
persuasion. Right? That's just this is a kind of side project. But you're
absolutely right. It was also Anonymous who used so many videos. Right. In a
period where, sure, others had to use videos. But it was groups like, for
example, Indymedia who's turned 20 this year, who took videos of the world around
us, whereas Anonymous created videos as a means for persuasion. And it was very
powerful at the time. And I am... I am inspired to think about how can we think
about persuasive mediums in all contexts in order to get our message out. Because
again, we're not always winning in this regard. Truth can never speak on its own,
right? And we always need adjuncts and adjuvants in order to get truth's message
out there. And certainly it was Anonymous in part that that helped me see the
importance of video and in a new way. So I'm really glad you mentioned that.
Herald: Thank you. And then we have another question from the Internet.
Signal-engel: Yeah, and the next question from the Internet is: how will you select
the right curators for the entries and how do they decide how they are
presented and contextualized? Biella: All right. So, I mean, I've been
working on hacker cultures for since 1998. Paula: Mine is a journey has been a
little bit shorter, but also for about 10 years or so.
Biella: Yeah. And so I do, I know a lot of people working on different topics. And
for the first round, we invited people. And it wasn't just academics. I have
gotten journalists and hackers are writing some entries as well. But they're just
like a little bit harder to kind of get them to turn in their entries. But
hopefully they will, because, again, it's it's not just who's been credentialed to
talk about a topic. It's who knows about a topic, who has something to say and who's
willing to go through the editing process. Because while journalists generally don't
have to go through multiple edits because you all just really know how to write for
the public, everyone else actually does struggle a little bit. And we do really
try to get the entries written in such a way where we're presuming, you know,
nothing about hackers or the video. It's not always easy, then, to write an entry,
that kind of starts from that that low level. And then in terms of the
contextualization, that's where we have three editors and curators. And I would
actually even say four because our final editor, Matt Gorson. He was an M.A.
student under me. He's doing a big project on security, hacking with me at data and
society. He knows a ton. And it's precisely having many eyeballs on one
entry that allows us to hopefully contextualize it properly. But, you know,
again, if something seems off, people should email us. And again, we're also
open to responses from the community as well, which we have one response from
Naomi. But, you know, perhaps that will kind of grow into something larger.
Paula: So when you ask why or why is it us that are curating, who's curating, really,
it's just the three of us that are doing this. And what kind of speech position are
we coming from? I mean, we're anthropologists of hacker cultures. What
does that mean? May for you guys, it doesn't mean much or it means a lot. Or
it's really we've studied you guys for a long time.
Biella: Yes. But it's it's also cool because it's like, well, except for Paula.
I mean, Chris and I like we have tenure and that may mean nothing to you all. But,
you know, hackers care about freedom and free speech and tenure allows you to be
free. Puala: I have tenure now.
Biella: Oh, you do? Sweet. We all are free to kind of do what we want in interesting
ways. And again, we're trying to experiment with mediums that go a little
bit beyond the academic journal, which I'm totally behind. I think there's really
good things about the academic journal. I think there's really good things about the
book. But we have the freedom to experiment with new mediums. And so
hopefully this this new medium will kind of reach different types of publics in a
way that kind of academic journal articles will never reach.
Herald: Are there any more questions? Paula: Party. Party.
Herald: It doesn't look like it. So I would like to invite you for another round
of applause for Biella and Paula.
*Applause*
Biella und Paula: Thank you guys, thank you so much.
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