Hacker Culture and Politics

We are all hackers now. This course chronicles the story of a kind of identity that began among a geeky subculture, then migrated to a murky criminal underground, only to be adopted by management consultants and CEOs. Do hacker formations like Wikileaks, Anonymous, and open-source software represent a new kind of politics, or a rejection of politics as we know it? We will explore the contested figure of the hacker in the past, present, and science-fiction of the Internet.

Since anyone who has signed up for a course with this name can probably expect to be on some watchlist for all eternity, we'll also have to learn skills. Expect to teach yourself and one another something technical. Hacker politics is not a spectator sport.

Basically, students are expected to hack it. This can take different forms for different people. We'll work together to make the expectations clear, and then it's up to you how and to what degree you'd like to meet them.

Student are expected to attend scheduled meetings and contribute to the class community. Each week, we'll follow a similar pattern:

• The first day, we'll learn a skill from a member of the class and hack on it together. On hacking days, it's a good idea to bring a computer with you.
• The second day, we'll discuss the readings for the week in light of our experience hacking. Screen devices allowed only for referring to the readings. Notes must be taken on paper.

Online, the course lives on a private GitLab repository, accessible only to members of the class.

Before every week's second class period, each student should post an “exploit” on the week's GitLab issue. This is a brief blog post detailing something you did with the week's skill, discussed in interaction with the week's texts. It need only be long enough to demonstrate some adventuresome thinking.

We learn from each other. At some point in the course, each student will present to the class a hacker skill that they have learned. One skill per student—you'll sign up ahead of time for a skill and a day to present. In a 10-15 minute presentation, including slides and/or a live demo, share with us not only the skill but the learning process you went through to obtain it. In advance of the presentation, you will also be expected to outline your presentation on the class's GitLab wiki, which classmates may edit and amend.

Become a goon. The final project for this course is to write an approximately 1,800-to-2,000-word report on a real-world hack for a relevant establishmentarian organization. If the hack in question is of questionable legality, write as an FBI agent, perhaps. If the hack is just a brilliant piece of technology, write as a stiff for a big computer company trying to figure out how to capitalize on it. In any case, with clear language and documented research, explain the nature of the hack, its significance, and a recommendation for what your organization should do about it.

This project includes a built-in debugging and revision process.

Grades are not especially conducive to hacking, but we need some equivalent in order for this course to be legible to the university. Therefore, work will be rewarded with bounties. These are functionally pretty much the same as grades, but perhaps giving them a different name will prevent them from killing the learning process in the way that grades normally do. The maximum bounty awarded for each portion of the course is as follows:

• Objective 0: 20 points
  • attendance; only absences with documentation from a relevant authority will be excused; more than 3 unexcused absences will result in a loss of 2 points each
  • thoughtful contributions to the discussion that demonstrate grasp of the readings
  • evidence of attention to others
  • good questions
  • active collaboration in learning and sharing skills
• Objective 1: 30 points
  • clever use of the week's skill
  • sophisticated engagement with the texts
  • punctuality
• Objective 2: 20 points
  • demonstrated autodidacticism (with appropriate community help)
  • ambition of the skill, balanced with realistic expectations
  • background information on the history and rationale of the task
  • accessibility and fun of the presentation
  • usable contribution to the wiki
• Objective 3: 30 points
  • complete beta version:
    • 1,800-to-2,000-word length
    • comprehension of the hack and accessible analysis of it
    • appropriate references to at least three assigned readings
    • impressive and documented research
    • correct grammar, correct spelling, coherence
  • participation in debugging
  • evidence of revision for final

Bounties will be compiled in real time on D2L for easy access. The final grade will be calculated by adding up the bounties each student has earned.

• When problems arise, we will seek to address them collaboratively—first through dialogue, then through revision of this document, and only if those are inadequate through recourse to outside authorities.
• We respect one another's privacy. Content shared in the course will not be shared beyond it.
• Use of laptops and other screen devices is discouraged during class time. They are highly likely to interfere with your learning experience. Most class activities, unless otherwise stated, neither require or will be improved by them.
• We adhere to basic university policies regarding accessibility and academic integrity; we take responsibility for understanding them and the relevant procedures. Verbum sat sapienti est.

• Urban Dictionary
  • Read all the pages
• Stephen Wolfram, “Untangling the Tale of Ada Lovelace” (December 10, 2015)
• Steven Levy, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution chapters 1 and 2 (1984)
• The Mentor, “The Conscience of a Hacker (aka Hacker Manifesto),” Phrack 1, no. 7 (1986)
• Stewart Brand, “'Keep Designing': How the Information Economy is being created and shaped by the Hacker Ethic”, Whole Earth Magazine (May 1985)
  • Too bad the first letter of every line is missing
  • For context, read the section on Stewart Brand here: Fred Turner and Christine Larson, “Network Celebrity: Entrepreneurship and the New Public Intellectuals,” Public Culture 27, no. 1 (2015)
• Robert Graham, “No, 'hacker' really does mean 'hacker',” Errata Security (August 8, 2012)

Skill: Hack something.

• Eric Steven Raymond, “How to Become a Hacker” (2001-2015)
• Eric Steven Raymond, “How To Ask Questions The Smart Way” (2001-2014)
• Alice Truong, “'Become An iOS Developer In 8 Weeks': The Truth About Hack Schools,” Fast Company (December 17, 2013)
• Paul Ford, “What Is Code?” Businessweek (June 11, 2015)

Skill: Teach yourself something.

• Neal Stephenson, “Spew,” Wired (October 1, 1994)
• Neal Stephenson, In the Beginning... Was the Command Line (1999)
• Gabriella Coleman, “The Craft and Craftiness of Hacking” in Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking (Princeton University Press, 2013)
• Tsutomu Shimomura, “Catching Kevin,” Wired (February 1, 1996)

Skill: Write a command-line script.

• candyman, “The Lamahs-Guide to Pirating Software on the Internet,” alt.games.doom (December 27, 1994)
• Downloaded, directed by Alex Winter (2013)
• Yochai Benkler, “A Free Irresponsible Press: WikiLeaks and the Battle Over the Soul of the Fourth Estate,” Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 46 (2011)
• Nafeez Ahmed, “The open source revolution is coming and it will conquer the 1% - ex CIA spy,” The Guardian (June 19, 2014)
• The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz, directed by Brian Knappenberger (2014)

Skill: Set a valuable piece of information free.

Hacking IP:

• Gabriella Coleman, “The Tale of Two Legal Regimes” and “Code Is Speech” in Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking (Princeton University Press, 2013)
• Richard Stallman, The GNU Manifesto (1985-1993)

Hacking corporate structure:

• Dymitri Kliener, The Telekommunist Manifesto (Network Notebooks, 2010)
  • Read pp. 20-25, 33-43
• Trebor Scholz and Nathan Schneider, “The People’s Uber: Why The Sharing Economy Must Share Ownership,” Fast Company (October 7, 2015)

Skill: Devise a license.

• Jeremy Adam Smith, “How to Design the Commons (or, Elinor Ostrom Explained!),” Shareable (December 10, 2009)
• Maxigas, “Hacklabs and hackerspaces – tracing two genealogies,” The Journal of Peer Production
• Liz Henry, “The Rise of Feminist Hackerspaces and How to Make Your Own,” Model View Culture (February 3, 2014)
• Nathan Schneider, “Can Monasteries Be a Model for Reclaiming Tech Culture for Good?,” The Nation (August 27, 2014)

Gittip/Gratipay, the firstsecond “open company”:

• Chad Whitacre, “The First Open Company,” Gittip blog (July 2, 2012)
• “Gittip Crisis,” Geek Feminism Wiki

Skill: Submit a bug report or feature request to an open-source project.

• Andrea Peterson, “Everything you need to know about encryption: Hint, you’re already using it
• Chris Stokel-Walker, ”The Internet Is Being Protected By Two Guys Named Steve,“ Buzzfeed (April 25, 2014)
• Julia Angwin, ”The World’s Email Encryption Software Relies on One Guy, Who is Going Broke,“ ProPublica (February 5, 2015)
• Raj Samani and Charles McFarland, Hacking the Human Operating System: The role of social engineering within cybersecurity, McAfee Labs (2015)
• Nathan Schneider, ”The Joy of Slow Computing,“ The New Republic (May 19, 2015)

Skill: Encrypt a form of digital communication.

• Lawrence Lessig, ”\<free_culture\>,“ O.Reilly Open Source Conference (July 24, 2002)
  • Watch Flash presentation
• David Garcia and Geert Lovink, ”The ABC of Tactical Media,“ nettime mailing list (May 16, 1997)
• Mark Dery, Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing, and Sniping in the Empire of Signs (Open Magazine Pamphlet Series, 1993)

Skill: Make a remix.

• YouTube prelude: Interview with a hacker
• David Auerbach, ”Anonymity as Culture: A Treatise,“ Triple Canopy 15 (December 1, 2011)
• Gabriella Coleman, ”Our Weirdness Is Free,“ Triple Canopy 15 (December 1, 2011)
• We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists, directed by Brian Knappenberger (2012)
• Adrian Chen, ” The Truth About Anonymous’s Activism,“ The Nation (November 11, 2014)

Another use of anonymity and geopolitics:

• Cormac Herley, ”Why do Nigerian Scammers Say They are from Nigeria?“ (2012?)
• Erika Eichelberger, ”What I Learned Hanging Out With Nigerian Email Scammers,“ Mother Jones (March 20, 2014)

Skill: Create a robust pseudonym.

• Adrian Chen, ”The Agency,“ The New York Times Magazine (June 2, 2015)
• Anna Litvinenko, ”Social Media and Perspectives of Liquid Democracy: The Example of Political Communication in the Pirate Party in Germany,“ European Conference on e-Government (June 2012)
• Kim-Mai Cutler, ”A Conversation With DemocracyOS, The YC Non-Profit That Built A Latin American Political Party,“ TechCrunch (April 17, 2015)
• Sebastian Kubitschko, ”The Role of Hackers in Countering Surveillance and Promoting Democracy, Media and Communication 3, no. 2 (2015)

Skill: Social-engineer something.

• William Gibson, “Burning Chrome,” Omni (1982)
• Satoshi Nakamoto, “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” (the “Bitcoin Whitepaper”) (undated)
• Nathan Schneider, “After the Bitcoin Gold Rush,” The New Republic (February 24, 2015)
• Meghan, “Bitcoin Doesn't Need Women,” Bitcoin Not Bombs (January 8, 2014)
• Nathan Schneider, “On the Lam With Bank Robber Enric Duran,” Vice (April 7, 2015)
• Nathan Schneider, “Why the Tech Elite Is Getting Behind Universal Basic Income,” Vice (January 6, 2015)

Skill: Get some bitcoins.

• Josh Constine, “The Nerdy Address Of Facebook’s New Headquarters? 1 Hacker Way,” TechCrunch (December 5, 2011)
• Brett Scott, “The Hacker Hacked,” Aeon (December 26, 2014)
• Misha Glenny, Hire the Hackers,“ TED Talk (July 2011)
• Nathan Schneider, ”Our Generation of Hackers,“ Vice (November 11, 2014)

Skill: Co-opt something.

What remains to be read? We'll decide together as a class.

Skill: What remains to be learned?

Peer review the final project and conclude the course.

• Ars Technica
• Geek Feminism Wiki
• Hacker News
• Lifehacker
• Lwn.net
• Model View Culture
• Slashdot
• Textfiles
• ThreatLevel

Quite a bit of the material came from this course with the same name offered by Gabriella Coleman. Read my profile of her here.

[ Notes ]