By examining personal demographic and historical characteristics of hackers, chapter 1 establishes a link between hacking and class. This chapter progresses forward through levels of analysis—from individual to group and subcultural dynamics.1 In particular, this chapter addresses the seemingly straightforward—yet crucial—question: “What is a hacker exactly?” For many in the public, hacking is synonymous with technocrime and other forms of technological malfeasance, an image shaped through social construction, predominantly through the media (Halbert 1997; Hollinger 1991; Skibell 2002; Taylor 1999; Wall 2012; Yar 2013). When pressed further to describe what is involved in hacking and who becomes a hacker, certainty gives way to confusion, and most people struggle to explain hacking beyond computers and a symbolic connection to criminality. They might even use their hands to pantomime typing on a computer and snatching money from the air. The details, however, are a mystery to most. In this manner, hacking has become “suffused with symbolic uncertainty as media messages and cultural traces swirl, circulate, and vacillate” (Ferrell, Hayward, and Young 2008, 124).
This chapter thus attempts to fan out the smoke and kick over the mirrors. An understanding of hacking based on mythology is not useful for social science.2 Definitions are extraordinarily important because “the terms of everyday language, like the concepts that they express, are always ambiguous and the scientist who employed them in the ordinary way without further explanation would lay himself open to the most serious confusion” (Durkheim [1987] 2006, 15). If we are to understand hacker subculture, then it makes sense to ground our definition in the meanings that hackers have created around the concept, particularly as hacker understandings can differ wildly from popular conceptions.
Based on my ethnographic research, hacking is perhaps best thought of as a kind of labor. Many noteworthy studies in criminology have previously found links between deviant, or criminal, activities and work (see Adler 2003; Fagan and Freeman 1999; King and Chambliss 1984; Letkemann 1973; Sutherland 1937; Tunnell 2006).3 What distinguishes this study from previous works is the form of labor that hacking most closely resembles—craftwork. Popular conceptualizations often indicate that any singular act—from writing code to data theft—is enough to brand a person as a hacker. Hacking, however, is more a process of becoming, much like how Howard Becker (1963) described the dynamics through which a person becomes a marijuana user. As a person does not become a craftworker overnight or possess a legitimate claim to such a title by picking up a hammer and hitting a few nails, a deviant act and a few lines of code do not a hacker make. Both craftwork and hacking are processes of development, refinement, and expression.
To make the argument that hacking is a kind of craft, this study draws from three different—yet complementary—theoretical foundations. The first is Richard Sennett’s (2008) The Craftsman, a sociological work about the process of craftwork and, importantly, how this distinct form of skilled labor is linked to personal and societal dynamics. In other words, the way a person works with their hands helps shape their perceptions and beliefs, which in turn has social implications. Sennett’s work then has direct implications for political economic analyses, particularly from a Marxist perspective including Marx’s discussions of alienation, species-being, and exploitation. Additionally, as Thomas (2002) has pointed out, hacking as a cultural phenomenon has developed alongside technology, indicating that perhaps the reason for such parallel progression is at least partially a result of direct hands-on work with technology.
The epistemic approach used in this analysis is phenomenological eidetic reduction. This technique of social analysis is concerned with isolating the eidos—essence—of a particular object (Heap 1981; Palermo 1978). An essence is defined as “what is invariant and common to all possible examples of some phenomenon” and it is “what is common to a set of individual items” (Heap 1981, 300, 302). The idea is that the philosopher “‘brackets’ the natural world and world of interpretation in order to see the phenomenon in its essence” (Finlay 2008, 2). At its core, then, eidetic reduction is about taking an object—hacking in this case—and reducing it to those qualities that are essential for its qualification. This approach is interested in isolating those qualities that, distinct from any individual hacker, compose the eidos of hacking. To put it another way, this project seeks to generate a description of the socio-symbolic components that distinguish hacking as a distinct social and cultural phenomenon—to find the essence of hacking.4
In addition to eidetic reduction, this analysis engages in what cultural criminology identifies as the politics of meaning (Ferrell 2013). Cultural criminology is a relative newcomer to criminology but it has deep roots, drawing inspiration from Chicago School–style subcultural theory, Marxism, anarchism, symbolic interactionism or labeling theory, phenomenology, and theoretical thought on late modernity to create an orientation that situates the immediate lived experience of crime and crime control in the turbulence of late modern capitalism (Ferrell, Hayward, and Young 2008). Though sometimes accused of resulting in a theoretical soup, cultural criminology provides a powerful framework in which to conduct qualitative analyses and connect micro- and subcultural-level dynamics to broader social trends and issues.5
In the context of cultural criminology, the politics of meaning refers to “the contested social and cultural processes by which situations are defined, individuals and groups are categorized, and human consequences are understood . . . meaning can be seen to be a constitutive element of human action and a foundation of human culture—an ongoing, everyday process of sense-making, symbolic communication, and contested understanding” (Ferrell 2013, 258). As previously described, hacking is a concept with heavily contested meanings which arise from the hacking subculture, the media, and even agents and agencies of social control (Halbert 1997; Hollinger 1991; Skibell 2002; Taylor 1999; Wall 2012; Yar 2013). These meanings exist in tension with each other, often with the latter two sources dominating public perceptions. The current analysis seeks to cut through these “contested social and cultural processes” to create an understanding of hacking rooted in the subculture from which it emerges—one that pulls itself away from narratives largely manufactured and controlled by politics and the media (Ferrell 2013, 258).6
Craft, as understood in this analysis, can be defined as “doing something well for its own sake.” According to Sennett (2006, 104), “Self-discipline and self-criticism adhere in all domains of craftsmanship; standards matter, and the pursuit of quality ideally becomes an end in itself.”7 The dynamics of craft run deep in hacking. Eight components of hacking as craftwork will be described. These include: (1) a particular mentality, (2) an emphasis on skill, (3) a sense of ownership, (4), social and learning structures with parallels to guilds, (5) commitment, (6) an emphasis on means over ends, (7) an emotional or phenomenological experience, and (8) an underlying transgressive edge. Following a description of these features, this analysis advances a succinct but arguably comprehensive definition of hacking.8
Table 2.1. Components of Hacking*
| Theme | Interviewees (%) | Articles (%) |
|---|---|---|
|
The Hacker Mentality |
14 (100%) |
124 (64.25%) |
|
Skill |
13 (92.86%) |
33 (17.10%) |
|
Ownership |
11 (78.57%) |
118 (61.14%) |
|
Hacking as a Guild |
10 (71.43%) |
50 (25.91%) |
|
Commitment |
10 (71.43%) |
25 (12.95%) |
|
Journey over Destination |
9 (64.29%) |
23 (11.92%) |
|
The Hacker Experience |
10 (71.43%) |
20 (10.36%) |
|
Hacking as Transgression |
13 (92.86%) |
86 (44.56%) |
* Frequencies from participant observation data are omitted because of the difficulty presented by creating distinct counts from this type of data.
The data from which the conclusions in this chapter are drawn include both ethnographic field research—in the form of participant observation and semi-structured interviews—and content analysis (CA) of 2600: The Hacker Quarterly (refer to the introduction). Throughout the results, primarily interview and content analysis data are presented to allow the themes to be expressed in the participants’ own words, though participant observation did inform the analysis tremendously. Frequencies and percentages for the various themes discussed in this analysis are given in table 2.1.
In my opinion, you can’t be a hacker without a certain mindset . . . It doesn’t matter if you are talking about a person who uses that mindset as a 3-D modeler or a security researcher . . . or in cyber espionage offense security . . . they all have the same characteristics. But what we need to realize is that the acts that could be referred to as a hack . . . You kind of need to understand the mindset of the person who performed that act.
In this excerpt from an interview with Keith, a member of Union Hack, he indicates that the mentality—the thought processes—of an individual are vital for being a hacker (interviewees = 14; 100%; CA items = 124; 64.25%). To be a hacker, one must think like a hacker. In the course of sifting through the ethnographic data, five key components of a hacker mentality were identified including curiosity, problem-solving, systematic and technical thinking, creative and unorthodox thinking, and an orientation towards breaking and creating. Discussing the hacker mentality is important as such thought processes are shaped by direct work with technology in what Sennett (2008, 9) describes as “the intimate connection between hand and head.” By examining the mental components, we can identify hacking as a relatively unique subcultural phenomenon. Through its direct work with technology, hacking permits close parallels to be made between it and craftwork.
The first component of the hacking mentality involves a deep curiosity, which serves as a vital link between hacking and craft in the sense described by Sennett (2008, 120): “All of his or her [the craftsperson’s] efforts to do good-quality work depend on curiosity about the material at hand.” In interviews, observations, and the content analysis data, curiosity was repeatedly described as a feature of thinking like a hacker. For instance, in an interview Russell states, “So, to me, it’s more like curiosity of . . . what can it do? What can I make it do to make my life easier?” In his descriptions of hackers, Bruce Schneier (2006, 26) echoes this sentiment in a 2600 article: “A hacker is someone who thinks outside the box. It’s someone who discards conventional wisdom, and does something else instead. It’s someone who looks at the edge and wonders what’s beyond. It’s someone who sees a set of rules and wonders what happens if you don’t follow them. A hacker is someone who experiments with the limitations of a system for intellectual curiosity” (emphasis added). Perhaps stating the point more succinctly, Dr. Zoltan (2008, 57) describes hacking as “exploration, led by curiosity.” Curiosity thus seems to be key to thinking like a hacker—indeed, at times this curiosity can be quite intense and lead a hacker onto trouble’s doorstep. In an article written for Phrack, The Mentor (1986)—a (in)famous figure among the early hacker underground—wrote an article entitled “The Conscience of a Hacker” (sometimes referred to as “The Hacker Manifesto”). While making a series of claims about the hacker mindset amid a broader social context of increasing scrutiny and mistrust of hackers, The Mentor states: “Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity” (emphasis added).
The second feature of the hacker mentality is a problem-solving orientation, providing another link between hacking and craft in their ability to identify problems and solve them (Sennett 2008). Hackers, above all things, focus on overcoming some sort of obstacle. These obstacles can include puzzles, problems, or any similar challenge. Hacking, however, is not about achieving the goal per se; rather, hacking is embedded in the process of achieving the goals. Even when hackers have a goal in mind—from developing a program to stealing information—the essence of hacking itself is woven into the process, rather than the goal itself. In sharing his mentality towards hacking, Jensen discussed that he wants to solve projects above almost anything. He admitted that overcoming obstacles could sometimes keep him up at night “obsessing over it.”
From 2600, ternarybit (2012, 26) describes the components of hacking, invoking a problem-solving orientation as a key element. The questions surrounding the nature of hacking are rooted in a false definition that situates hackers primarily by what they do rather than who they are: “Hackerdom, rather, comprises a broad set of faculties and proclivities that I believe everyone possesses to some degree: critical thinking, creativity, inquisitiveness, problem-solving skills, and a hunger for knowledge, to name only a few” (emphasis added). Likewise, MS-Luddite (2008, 19) describes the hacker mentality as encompassed almost entirely by the desire to solve problems: “I guess I am a bit biased, but I am a true believer in what I call the ‘Hack Factor.’ I define this factor as that certain something inside a hacker that simply drives them until a solution to a problem is found.” This problem-solving orientation stems from working directly with technology—it allows a person to fumble with an object, find a problem, and then seek out a solution. In this way, the hacker is oriented towards both “problem-solving and problem-finding” in the same way as the craftperson—such as a brick worker or musician—struggles with tasks at hand, yet continues to seek ways to overcome deficits in their knowledge or skill (Sennett 2008, 9).
Systematic and technical approaches are also part of the hacker mentality. This component perhaps is the most apparent in its parallels to craftwork—with the ability to approach a problem in a manner that is efficient and structured. In this sense, thinking like a hacker is not just about being able to think creatively and critically. It is also important to think in a systematic fashion. For instance, Raj describes the process as similar to an if-then loop approach in programming:
You are like, “Okay, you know, well, I want to run a brute force attack.” And I would try to brute force attack to this port. “Oh, that port is closed so it must be running on something else. Let me do a port scan. You know, to see what port it might be running on. Okay, well, I don’t know exactly which one but I’ve got a pretty good feeling its either A, B, C, D, E, or F. So let me try those.” So, I go through systematically those. And all of a sudden I go through, you know, “Okay, well, I think I found one. Let me see what type of response I get.” So, it’s just kind of like working through an analytical process. In your head like, “This didn’t work . . . Okay, well . . .” It’s basically, you know, in computer programming, there’s the concept of the if-then statement . . . It’s one big if-then statement.
Part of the technical component of thinking like a hacker involves valuing efficiency. The mental energies involved in hacking not only dictate that a working solution be developed, but it must be an efficient solution since, as one hacker (Gilbert) told me, there is no sense in doing something if someone else already did it more efficiently and effectively. Harvey describes this mindset in greater detail: “I’m in the PHP configuration file, I’m dicking around . . . [and I think] ‘And you know what? I bet I can shave a couple cycles if I use this command instead of that command’ . . . or if I write a specialized function that does this this way as opposed to that. I get all excited. And that, that is to me what hacking is.” As a result, some hackers tend to think of the hacking enterprise as scientific due to its emphasis on approaching problems and projects in a systematic and efficient manner. As Bill Squire (2006, 26) states, “Don’t forget: hacking is scientific.”
This process of thinking through problems systematically is important as it streamlines the aforementioned process between problem-finding and problem-solving. Such an orientation provides hackers with the mental facilities to solve problems in a structured and efficient manner. In addition, inefficiency and complexity become problems themselves to find and solve. Problems can be more easily identified and addressed in a systematic manner, but streamlining the process of labor itself for efficiency is a problem worth exploring on its own. Thus, there is a reciprocal relationship between problem-solving or problem-finding and systematic and technical thinking.
Creativity and unconventional thinking is highlighted as a component of thinking like a hacker. It is not enough to approach problems in a logical and critical capacity; one has to be willing to think about such problems in an unorthodox manner as well. 2600 author Ninja_of_Comp (2011, 31) describes this creativity as thinking “outside the box” to “look for different ways to solve a problem.” This component of the hacker mentality involves looking at “the things everyone else sees, but in a new and different way that’s not immediately apparent” (Torrone 2006, 26).
Interviewee Rick also describes this creative unorthodoxy through a metaphor:
So . . . I mean, you’ve seen a cage. You’ve probably seen a jail with all those bars. Some people see the bars. Some people see the spaces between the bars. We always saw the spaces between the bars. And we’re always baffled that other people didn’t see the spaces between the bars . . . It just seemed, like, that in my mind, from when we were in high school and there were gaping, gaping flaws in other people’s perceptions. They’d go, “There’s bars!” And you’d go, “There’s bars this far apart [places hands about ten inches apart]. Turn sideways and there’s no bars.” And they say, “No, there’s bars.” And you’re like just . . . [laughs] people refuse to get it.
In “seeing the spaces between the bars,” Rick highlights the importance of being able to see things in an unconventional way—an approach reminiscent of Gestalt psychology. The participant elaborates by saying:
For me it’s more of the MIT definition . . . You know, the concept of, you know, you’re taking things beyond . . . It’s an out-of-the-box kind of mindset. You look at things and go . . . You turn your head sideways and turn your head different ways and you say . . . ‘Can I attack this in a different way?’ And it’s not always an attack . . . like, ‘I want to break into’ . . . but can we think about this differently? And can we make it do things that we normally wouldn’t expect it to? And you can take it above and beyond and it’s part of innovating and it’s motivated purely by curiosity.
Clearly, then, creativity is a strongly held value for thinking like a hacker. In addition, greater prestige is given towards creativity that inverts standard ways of thinking. As such, this component of the hacker mentality can be summarized as creative unconventionality. Such creative unconventionality is yet another feature further connecting hacking and craftwork as well—most notably in the difficulty of separating art from craft, as both seem to be mutually dependent. Additionally, Sennett (2008) also describes the idea that craftsmanship often involves taking tools designed for one specific purpose and using them for alternative purposes instead—improvisation, a greatly valued ability amongst hackers, is an example of the value of creativity and unconventionality in craftwork. The problem-solving orientation, systematic and technical thinking, and creative unorthodoxy combine together into what Sennett refers to as “practical creativity” (30).
The final component of thinking like a hacker involves a mindset that aims to dissect and disassemble things and then either rebuild them in a new way or create an extension or addition. Aidan summarizes the breaking component of hacking: “[Hacking is] basically taking it apart to see if you can put it back together again. I mean, it’s tinkering . . . figuring out what makes it do what it does and . . . ways to break it. That’s . . . pretty much what I’ve always tried to do and that’s still what I do . . . try to break things.” Echoing this sentiment, 2600 editor Emmanuel Goldstein (2005, 4) asserts, “Computers, telephones, hardware of other sorts, and software of all types exist to be tinkered with, stretched to their limits, modified, taken apart, broken, and fixed. That’s all part of the learning process.”
The way of thinking about things in terms of their ability to “be tinkered with, stretched to their limits, modified, taken apart, broken, and fixed” also echoes the craftsperson’s desire to fix things as a method of learning. As Sennett (2008, 199) states: “Put simply, it is by fixing things that we often get to understand how they work.” While the act of simply repairing something and putting it back together is referred to as a static repair, it is the dynamic repairs that are a key part of hacking culture. Dynamic repairs “will change the object’s current form or function once it is reassembled” (200).
To summarize, this research indicates that a hacker is a person who is (a) curious, (b) focused on solving problems or enthused by puzzles, (c) appreciative of systematic and technical approaches to thinking, (d) creative and unorthodox, and (e) focused on dissecting and the art of creation and recreation. This mentality is not only key to understanding hacking as a phenomenon, but it also serves to qualify hacking as a kind of craft. With establishing the role that a particular mentality plays in hacking and how that mentality links to craft, this discussion now turns toward the next component of hacking, an emphasis on skill.
When writing about professional thieves, Edwin Sutherland (1937, 14) stated that “a thief is not a professional until he is proficient.” A thief must have developed a degree of skill to be appreciated as a professional in his or her trade. Similarly, hacking also heavily emphasizes the development and exercise of skill, particularly in work with high technology (interviewees = 13; 92.86%; CA items = 33; 17.10%) (see also Holt 2010b; Taylor 1999; Turkle 1984). Defined as “a trained practice,” skill permeates both hacking and craftwork: “All craftsmanship is founded on skill developed to a high degree” (Sennett, 2008, 37, 20). Skill, as opposed to talent, also implies that such ability to craft had to be honed over time through work and dedication. Hacking places such a degree of emphasis on skill that acts that do not demonstrate such proficiency are often not considered authentic hacks. As Raj demonstrates:
When a guy posts a piece of code online and says, “Hey, I discovered this . . . the super-user escalation privilege bug . . . in every Linux kernel prior to 26.26,” and then . . . So, you log in, you download the source, you compile it, and you’re like, “Wow . . . I can get super-user access for any Linux system prior to this kernel.” And then you see . . . that this Russian guy wrote a bunch of code that I can’t really understand but I can compile it . . . and I can make use of his work. You see, that type of person, to me, is a hacker. The person that spent hours, you know, figuring out that Java sandbox bypass . . . and used it to basically shed the theory that Macs were . . . they were not exploitable.9 That guy, to me, is a real hacker. The person who is doing social engineering or dumpster diving or asking you when your birthday is and what your kid’s name is . . . to try to do a dictionary attack on your system, that’s not hacking in my book.
As Raj explains, those who initially took the time to develop and exercise their skill in the creation of a new hack are legitimate hackers, while those who merely perform uninventive attacks and ready-made scripts are not. In these cases, skill is the marker of hackerdom.
Hacking often conjures up imagery of technological wizardry and magic as a mechanism of communicating the raw level of skill a person is able to demonstrate. For instance, Rick describes the early hacking developments of Steve Wozniak: “If you look at the Apple world and the shit Woz did, it was crazy. People cannot even grasp the shit he did. He basically made a color computer out of nothing. Almost magic. Just by changing timing and seeing what happened on the computer. I mean, he used, like, no chips.” In fact, the very process of becoming a hacker involves both the development of skill and the recognition of such skill by other members in the community. Take, for example, Sutherland’s (1937, viii) description of professional thieves: “No one is a professional thief unless he is recognized as such by other professional thieves.” Nick Farr (2008, 26) describes this social dynamic among hackers:
Most of the people in the room, however, are “newbies.” They’re off to the side, fascinated by these hackers making cool things out of a pile of parts. Through careful observation, some idle chatter, and a few questions about the work in progress, they’re getting a clearer idea of what these small components do and how they come together . . . In a few Mondays, after getting a little experience with a soldering iron, a few code samples, a bit of encouragement, and a kit of their own, a few of these newbies will start contributing ideas and hacks of their own—and be recognized by their peers as fellow hackers.
Consistent with the notion that hacking is more about becoming than “is” or “is not,” the more a person develops and expresses skill, the closer they move toward the subcultural ideal of “hacker.” Finding a measurable threshold a person crosses to become a hacker, however, is likely impossible. Instead, members of the hacking community must subculturally and situationally negotiate their position as a hacker through the development, possession, and execution of skill.10
Sennett (2008, 20) describes the relationship between craft and skill as one where, “as skill progresses, it becomes more problem-attuned.” In this sense, there is a strong relationship between the development of skills for hackers and the problem-solving orientation previously described. In this vein, Joseph Battaglia (2006, 50) describes hacking as the application of skill towards overcoming a challenge: “Working for such entities certainly isn’t for everyone but it’s full of challenges and, if you can accept the restrictions that go along with it, you’ll find that it’s a great arena in which to test your skills. It’s a new challenge, and we’re all hackers. Let’s get to work.” Further, Sennett (2008, 26) states that “the experimental rhythm of problem-solving and problem-finding makes the ancient potter and the modern programmer members of the same tribe.” Hacking involves not just a process of problem-solving but, as skill increases, the ability to find problems to solve. In fact, problem-solving and problem-finding are vital to the process of skill development.
When an artisan pursues a craft, there is an intimately close relationship that develops between themselves, their tools, and the created objects. Through the input of time, skill, and labor, the artisan pours themselves into the object, leaving their mark on it or, in some cases, literally branding their work (Sennett 2008). In addition, “craftsmanship requires mastering and owning a particular domain of knowledge” (Sennett 2006, 115; emphasis mine). In this manner, the craftsperson possesses a sense of ownership over the craft. They are relatively unalienated in their labor, highly autonomous, and invested in their work. Through the exercise of what Levy (1984) refers to as the “hands-on imperative” and by thoroughly investing themselves in understanding and working with technology, hackers come to possess a degree of ownership over their craft and its products (interviewees = 11; 78.57%; CA items = 118; 61.14%). For both hackers and artisans, such ownership can be said to occur in two capacities: ownership over the act of labor itself and a sense of ownership over technology. As uncovered in this study, hackers, as artisans, take ownership over their craft in multiple ways.
First, to really own something—to acquire mastery—one should be intimately knowledgeable about it. Craftspersons spend years honing their skills and refining their knowledge. Good tradepersons are characterized by their deep knowledge of the items with which they work—from the raw materials they use to their tools. Similarly, hackers strive to learn what they can—the deeper the understanding, the better. Part of gaining this understanding comes with taking things apart. Harvey describes this aspect of hacking: “If you want to learn to program, you should learn to hack in some way. I’m not saying go bust into some bank or whatever but I mean . . . to really know how a machine works, you have to tear it down.” Much like mechanics who possess the skill to take a car apart and reassemble it, hackers break systems down as a means of acquiring both skill and a deeper understanding of how things work. In order to fully understand a system, hackers begin by “looking under the hood.”
Hackers also demonstrate ownership over technology through the breaking of restrictions on software and hardware. Two types of restrictions are of importance: technological and legal. In either case, the implementation of restrictions on technology means that a party outside of the relationship between hackers and technology is asserting control on the nature of that relationship. Rick describes going to hacker parties as a youth where the participants created methods for breaking software copy-protection mechanisms. He describes the rationality as such, “The goal is to make the computer do what you want it to do. Not what somebody else wants it to do . . . The computer answers to me. Not . . . not to you” (emphasis added). According to Rick, both technological and legislative restrictions—in the form of copy-protection methods and copyright law—were circumvented because both obstructed the relationship between themselves (hackers) and the computer.
Even if we look at computer intrusions instead of cracking, the concept of ownership still applies.11 When a security hacker breaks into a system and secures control, the system is then said to be “owned.” At DEF CON 21, there were two wireless networks set up—one “secure” and one unsecure (“secure” is placed in quotations because, by the end of the convention, that network had been thoroughly compromised). The unsecure network was set up specifically for various hackers to experiment and battle in an attempt to break through each other’s security: that is, to “own” someone else’s system. In fact, one of the most well-known contests at DEF CON involves Capture the Flag. This game consists of teams of hackers defending and attacking computer systems. Victory is secured when one team can “own” an objective.
The modification of technology also demonstrates an ownership over software and hardware. For Goldstein (2007, 4), hacking is about learning and circumventing restrictions so that one can modify the hardware or software:
If anything were to sum up what every single one of our articles has had in common over all these years, it’s that desire to find out just a little bit more, to modify the parameters in a unique way, to be the first to figure out how to achieve a completely different result. Whether we’re talking about getting around a barrier put in place to prevent you from accessing a distant phone number or a restricted computer system, or cracking the security of some bit of software so that you can modify it to perform functions never dreamed of by its inventors, or revealing some corporate secrets about how things really work in the world of networks and security—it’s all about finding out something and sharing it with anyone interested enough to listen and learn.
Even open-source software programming/hacking is tied to the idea of ownership. The very notion that code is open for any and all to comb through, modify, contribute to, splinter from, co-opt, etc. means that each contributor, in a sense, owns the project. In proprietary software, the company owns the software and the source code is closed off to the public. Copy-protection measures are put in place to prevent piracy—thus securing the ownership of the software for the copyright holder. Hackers, however, break the restrictions (as previously described) to prevent the program from being restricted to them. In either sense, hackers seem to desire a closer relationship to the code—a sense of ownership.
Such assertions of ownership also invoke the notions of autonomy, independence, and freedom. These likely spring from the perspective of liberalism permeating hacker culture (Coleman and Golub 2008). As such, the close relationship between the artisan and hacker, their tools, and their objects of labor point towards a greater political struggle occurring within the act of hacking—resistance against control and the value of autonomy (as will be further articulated in chapters 3 and 4 with discussions of technological and economic liberalism).
Guilds are groups of artisans who work together to develop and control the practice of their craft. These social structures often invoke images of a bygone era before mass-industrialization and Taylorism where individuals devoted their lives to a craft, working as apprentices and progressing up to mastery status, passing their knowledge onto their own apprentices and so forth. Outside of specialized shops, guild structures seem to have been nearly obliterated in modern times. Guilds, however, seem to persist in small pockets of society, becoming almost subversive in their manifestations. As argued here, one of the areas in which guild social and learning structures seem to have persisted is within the hacker community (interviewees = 10; 71.43%; CA items = 50; 25.91%).
Craftspersons within guilds typically (historically and contemporarily) operate individually or in small groups, and only to come together when necessary to control and develop the trade (Sennett 2008). Hacker social and learning dynamics take on similar qualities. For instance, the activity of hacking often involves a tremendous degree of autonomous motivation and learning. As Miles describes in an interview, “They tend to be introverted, they tend to be self-started. Self-starters. Self-learning.” In a similar fashion, Valnour (2009, 32) describes his experience in learning to hack through language borrowed from the Star Wars franchise: “I was beginning to identify with the hacker world, but very much considered myself a padawan [apprentice] without a master. I am sure many of you can identify with me at that age.” In this way, there is some truth to the stereotype that hackers tend to be loners. Often hacking is a solitary activity involving long hours in front a computer or other piece of technology, working away on a project or problem. The idea of the individual is very much valued.12 This emphasis on the individual is similar to trades, where the craftsperson is at the center. In a factory setting, the task of building a car, for example, is divided between many different workers—emphasis is on the group. For the artisan, the production process is largely in the hands of individual workers.
While there is an emphasis on autonomy in guilds, the individual does not operate within a void. The maker must be trained, typically through a master-apprentice relationship. Additionally, the artisan will learn, teach, and work within the context of the guild. While not conforming to the pre-industrialization image of the craftsperson and the guild, hackers have similar social and learning dynamics modified in the age of the Internet. In this way, the direct relationship between hackers’ work with technology and technological progress mediates and influences social interactions as well (Thomas 2002). As Russell comments, these learning mechanisms are vital because learning to hack in complete isolation can be difficult: “It’s also one of the problems of knowledge. . . . You’ve got level one where . . . you are too ignorant to know what you don’t know. So, you can’t really form the questions. So, you don’t know what to ask to advance.” In this sense, learning from others accelerates the rate of learning by filling in the gaps in knowledge that might otherwise take a tremendous amount of time to overcome in isolation. In other words, social learning is important for development as a hacker (Holt 2010a).
In my own experience as a participant observer, I similarly found pure self-learning to be difficult and that interaction and mentorship are important. After my third meeting at Union Hack, I saw a few members picking locks at a local bar (practice locks, not the bar’s). I knew that lock picking had been practiced in the early MIT days of hacking but was unaware that the practice was still so prominent. After watching, I became very interested in learning to do it myself. The problem was, as Russell stated earlier, I was in a position where I was so ignorant on the topic that I “didn’t know what I didn’t know.” As such, I had pushed learning to pick locks onto the backburner. At DEF CON, however, I had the opportunity to participate in a tutorial at the lock-picking village (the convention hosted a number of “villages,” which were common areas for the practice and discussion of particular areas of hacking). After learning some of the basics, I had a firm enough handle on the practice to engage in more successful and productive self-learning. So while my individual efforts were still important, I had to learn from persons more knowledgeable than myself to accelerate my education.
Sharing knowledge is a strong component of the hacker community. It is not enough to learn individually. Rather, one needs to share the information one accumulates to benefit the entire community. Prettis (2009, 28) describes the benefits of such an approach: “Sharing files is really satisfying and being able to create objects from other people’s tried and true design files will make it easier for folks who are just getting interested in rapid prototyping to get started. Sharing is something that makes the world a better place.” Sharing is a core component of hacking culture much like how the exchange of new information and techniques was key in the function of trade guilds.
On the heels of such an emphasis on sharing, various mechanisms of knowledge-transmission have developed in the hacker community akin to apprenticeship. First, more direct one-on-one mentorship relationships can occur. In an interview, Danny describes his early hacker education experiences. One notable relationship involved a friend he met online who showed him how to engage in various hacking-related activities. For instance, he was taught (through having it done on himself) how to engage in “dropping dox”—an act which involves breaking through an individual’s perceived sense of anonymity by uncovering personal details about them, often ending with the delivery of documents or “dox” to the target. In this way, Danny was directly mentored.
A second manifestation of apprenticeship in the hacker community is group learning. Reflecting on a time before Web 2.0, Rick describes his first encounter with a hacker group. He indicated that his learning accelerated when he was among others capable of teaching him various tricks of the trade, such as bypassing early forms of software copy protections. In one instance, he describes how such group learning dynamics unfolded in this group that he began working with:
They met like once . . . Once a month or so. And brought all the stuff to somebody else’s house who volunteered or had the most plugs and horizontal space. Everybody would swap software and then they taught you about hardware tricks you didn’t know. Like, the Apple II was a one-sided floppy machine. Everybody knew that. It had a write-protect slot on the side of the disk so if you punched . . . If it had a hole—a notch—cut in it, you could write on the disk . . . You stuck a piece of tape over it, you couldn’t write on the disk. It was protected. And so it turns out, single-sided and double-sided floppy disks are exactly the same. And made on the same lines. They’re just not verified on both sides. They ship it on there. But if you turned the disk over, you got a hole punch and you punched a hole in that spot . . . You can write on the back! Nobody told you that! The guys at the computer stores didn’t tell you that. Nobody knew . . . These guys do. Everybody knew. Suddenly I had all of these blank discs. They were the backsides of all of my full discs. And I thought I had all these full discs.
This narrative demonstrates the value of group learning for hackers. Rick was able to learn about things he did not even know existed through participation in a hacker group.
Finally, the Internet and other computer networks serve as late-modern mechanisms for vicarious apprenticeship. Rick, Harvey, and Miles described learning about computers and hacking by accessing early bulletin board systems (BBSs) where users would upload text files to educate other hackers or would-be hackers. Danny, Keith, and Gilbert described learning from Internet message boards or other repositories such as HappyHacker.net. In this way, hackers write material to be accessed by other hackers, thus providing an indirect form of community mentorship reminiscent of guild trade books (Sennett 2008). Additionally, some of these digital localities are sources for others to ask questions in lieu of more direct mentoring relationships where they often are given the answers they seek or are told to RTFM, or “read the fucking manual” (see also Holt 2010a).13
Much like guild systems, hackers stratify the community on degrees of skill. In a guild, crafts are organized in terms of apprentices, journeymen, and masters (Sennett 2008). With increased skill comes a corresponding ascension up the ranks. In the hacking community, a similar stratification method is present. At the lowest skill level there are “script kiddies,” “newbies” or “n00bs.” As one progresses in skill, one comes nearer to being a hacker. Someone can be considered to reach the level of master when they reach the “next level” (as described by Susan) and create an original, clever, and creative hack that required tremendous skill to pull off. In addition, one can gain recognition in the community through the demonstration of skillful and inventive hacks in these group settings—much in the same way as those afforded social rewards in workshop settings: “Organized into a system of guilds, the workshop provided other, more impersonal emotional rewards, most notably, honor in the city” (Sennett 2008, 53).
As demonstrated here, hacking can be considered a kind of late-modern guild. The individual is re-situated closer to the center of production—away from the de-centered model of modern production—while still emphasizing learning occurring in a mentorship and group context. In this space, the individual engaged in relations in two directions. The first involves an engagement with technology as something to be worked with, puzzled over, and learned about. This relationship is often conducted in relative isolation. The second is a social relationship with other likeminded people. Such relationships operate reciprocally and are mutually reinforcing—the stronger both of these relationships become, the stronger the hacker or craftsperson becomes. Additionally, the appeal of hacking also seems to rest, at least partially, in the ability to have one’s cake and eat it too. That is, to operate relatively autonomously while also enjoy participating in a cultural learning environment with others who share similar dispositions and experiences. The influence of technology, though, is not only felt at the individual level. It also serves to mediate and influence many social interactions as well (Thomas 2002).
To become a master craftsperson, one needs the determination, drive, and devotion to excel in their trade. Sennett (2008, 9) describes this as “commitment.” Commitment has also been found to be important for work in other criminological areas (Fagan and Freeman 1999; Letkemann 1973). Likewise, hackers are characterized by a deep commitment towards their activities (interviewees = 10; 71.43%; CA items = 25; 12.95%). Susan summarizes this characteristic of the hacker eidos succinctly when she stated, “The thing about hackers is they love to learn,” and “what it means to hack is to just take an interest in how things work.” Roger describes hackers as “tech savvy, geeky people with big passionate interests.” Further, Roger recognizes that it takes a lot of work and skill to become a hacker but, perhaps equally important, enthusiasm matters as well: “I think it takes actually a lot of study and a lot of homework and a lot of enthusiasm.” 2600 author mirrorshades (2005, 50) describes the commitment of hackers in the following terms:
I do what I do because I love computers. I believe that information is amoral on its own, and that what I do with it is my own decision. “What I do” is whatever I find interesting at the moment; I don’t worry about right or wrong, profit or loss, reputation or credibility. There have been countless nights that I have stayed up past 3:00 am working on something that has no inherent value other than the knowledge I gain from doing it. What I do goes beyond interest, beyond hobby, beyond obsession. Can you say the same about anything, anything that you do? If you can’t, then you have gone through life missing something.
As Turkle (1984, 207) stated in her study of early 1980s tech culture, hackers are “caught up in an intense need to master—to master perfectly—their medium.” In this way, hacking and craftsmanship converge through commitment. Sennett (2006, 195) elaborates: “It’s not simply that the obsessed, competitive craftsman may be committed to doing something well, but more that he or she believes in its objective value. A person can use the words correct and right in describing how well something is done only if he or she believes in an objective standard outside his or her own desires, indeed outside the sphere of rewards from others. Getting something right, even though it may get you nothing, is the spirit of true craftsmanship” (emphasis in original).
In many ways, the activity of hacking is not so much about technology or the challenge per se. Rather, hacking is at least partially embedded in the process of working with technology or overcoming an obstacle (interviewees = 9; 64.29%; CA items = 23; 11.92%). This further cements the relationship between hacking and craftwork because, as stated by Sennett (2008, 9), “craftsmanship names an enduring basic human impulse, the desire to do a job well for its own sake” (emphasis added). Such a perspective on craft is not unknown, as even C. Wright Mills (1959, 220) describes intellectual craftsmanship where “the satisfactions of working are their own reward.” In this sense, as Susan has stated, “hacking is about the journey and the process,” not the destination. Similarly, the process of hacking concerns “getting to that end result versus the end result itself . . . the journey being more important than the destination and all that,” according to Aidan. Hailing back to the images of the American Wild West, hacker Danny describes hacking as “frontiersmanship”—thus equating hacking to trailblazing and finding new ground. In all cases, hacking is considered to be embedded in the process of accomplishing a goal or overcoming a challenge rather than the challenge itself. Such descriptions of hacking parallel the work of Turkle (1984, 201), reinforcing the connection between hacking and this dynamic of craftwork: “What is different for many hackers is that the means-ends relationship is dropped. The fascination is with the machine itself. Contact with the tool is its own reward.” In the same year as Turkle’s study, Levy (1984, 23) similarly described the “hack” as “a project undertaken or a product built not solely to fulfill some constructive goal, but with some wild pleasure taken in mere involvement.”
For artisans, the process of crafting becomes less about the end product of their labor than the labor itself. The craft is in the making rather than the made. Similarly, hacking is more about the process than the end result. In discussing the matter with Keith, he stated that successfully overcoming an obstacle or accomplishing a goal is not necessarily needed to be engaged in hacking: “I might argue that you don’t necessarily need the outcome. Because, let’s face it, anybody in the community—anybody who associates themselves even loosely with the term hacker—has come up with an inventive, ingenious, absolutely amazing hack using whatever knowledge they happen to have in whatever field they happen to be working in . . . and it didn’t do anything. It just doesn’t work.” Likewise, when engaging in craftsmanship, failure is inevitable in the process of creating works. One learns through these failures. Hacking represents this, as much of the process is trial-and-error. Success is important for advancement as it allows new lessons to be learned and new challenges to be met. The process of achieving success or failure, however, is what qualifies an activity as craftsmanship or hacking.14 If the process of hacking matters so much, then so too must the experience. It is toward the relationship between the emotional experience of hacking and craftwork that we now turn.
The deviant experience itself—with all of its emotional passions and perils—is a viable and important area of inquiry (Ferrell, Hayward, and Young 2008; Hayward 2004; Katz 1988). Such an endeavor is dedicated towards moving beyond the ‘background’ factors of criminality to the ‘foreground’—thus illuminating the significance of the immediate experience and participation in crime and deviance (Hayward 2004; Katz 1988). Little academic attention thus far has been given to the emotionality and lived experience of hacking, however. Through the ethnographic data underpinning this analysis, certain experiential components appear to be important for isolating the eidos of hacking—components that also mirror craft as well (interviewees = 10; 71.43%; CA items = 20; 10.36%). While some variation exists in these sensational experiences, there are two discrete arrangements of feelings that correspond to different stages of hacking. The first occur during the process of hacking and the second manifest upon completing a hack.
Upon initial inspection, the described feelings encountered by the participants seem almost discouraging. For many, tedium and frustration are intricately interwoven into the process of hacking. Keith elaborates on the sometimes-mundane nature of security hacking: “Sure, some of it can be automated, some of it can be scripted, but a lot of it is just really tedious and repetitive.” The unpleasant experience of frustration can also manifest when failure is encountered too often. “Trying to figure out how something works and not getting the right answer,” Susan explains, “is a little bit like being tortured.”
Tedium is a result of the often-mundane parts of overcoming a challenge while frustration often comes from experiencing failure. Willingness to fail (and to fully experience these negative stimuli), however, is important for development as a craftsperson (Sennett 2008). Similarly, hackers are no strangers to failure, as 2600 author Altman (2007, 16) elucidates: “The first big system I tried to hack was me. Like many of my first hacks, it wasn’t successful.” The frustrations experienced in the process of hacking may encourage advancement and adaptation in the act of craftsmanship. “Intuition begins with the sense that what isn’t yet could be. How do we sense this? In technical craftsmanship, the sense of possibility is grounded in feeling frustrated by a tool’s limits or provoked by its untested possibilities” (Sennett 2008, 209–210).
On the other hand, the process of hacking was also described as fun, thrilling, and adventurous. For Miles, the process of hacking (and playing video games) builds “anxiety and anticipation.” Danny describes the feeling of the trespass in hacking as a “jolt” with a “sense of adventure.” While tedium and frustration are tied to the process of hacking, a thrill can also be part of it. Of course, the rush seems to be set in the context of two circumstances: (a) when the activity is illegal with proximal chance of being caught, and (b) when the challenge draws closer and closer to resolution.
Another emotional experience, however, may serve to offset the negative emotions experienced previously in the process of hacking. If one manages to endure and find a rhythm, the sensational reward can be profound—resulting in the experience of flow, a concept pioneered by positive psychologists and previously used by criminologists (Csikszentmihalyi 1975; Hayward 2004). Flow “involves intense and focused concentration on the activity; action and awareness merge together; the person loses self-consciousness and is no longer aware of self; there is a sense of control over the action; the sense of time is distorted; and the activity is intrinsically rewarding” (Ko and Donaldson 2011, 148).
Flow-inducing activities, in this sense, are said to be “autotelic” (Csikszenmihalyi 1975), in that they are “enjoyable but highly intense pastimes” (Hayward 2004, 183). Many of the hackers in this study describe the process of hacking in a manner consistent with flow—a finding that resonates with Keith Hayward’s (2004) connection of flow and late modernity, as few activities are (arguably) as characteristic of late modernity as hacking. Both Jensen and Pete even use the term in their descriptions of the hacker experience, as Pete demonstrates: “In psychology there’s a concept called flow. And they say that a human being is at his happiest when they are at flow. Like a complete flow state. And when I get into those modes—which I guess would be a hacker mentality mode—my flow is extremely high. It’s . . . you know those moments when you get so focused you lose track of time? You look up and you are like, ‘Holy crap, look at the time!’” Further, he describes in greater detail the flow process in hacking:
You start off with the flow of, like, designing it and just doing it and sometimes you’re up till six in the morning, seven in the morning doing that kind of stuff and writing code or hacking something and, you know, it’s just . . . you lose track of time . . . and it has its downfalls and you’re like . . . it has consequences of, like, “I’m lacking sleep and I need to sleep.” Right? Your brain can only go so far ahead. But in that moment, it’s just . . . It’s one of the most rewarding feelings you can have. If you could find happiness . . . [trails off]
As such, one of the emotional payoffs of hacking seems to be flow. This is an important implication as it indicates how hackers can wade through tedium and frustration and still find the process satisfying. Much in the same way that craftspersons find a certain satisfaction in their work, hackers “enter into a realm in which contentment with ordinary things made well reigns” (Sennett 2008, 93). Hackers have been known to call this state “hack mode” or “deep hack mode.”15
This experience of flow is also noteworthy as a vital part of hacking in its ties to skill. To enter a flow state, one must have their skills challenged (Csikszentmihalyi, Abuhamdeh, and Nakamura 2005). Jane McGonigal (2011, 40–41) states, “Flow was typically the result of years, if not decades, of learning the structure of an activity and strengthening the required skills and abilities.” Sennett (2008) makes similar connections with the experience of craftwork. As one hones their skill and expertise, that person becomes more engrossed in the rhythm of their labor, prolonging ones attention span for the activity. The process of flow is tied to the ability to maintain focus for prolonged periods of time—to become engrossed in one’s work: “As skill expands, the capacity to sustain repetition increases” (38). As hacking emphases skill so heavily, one can see how flow and hacking would occur in tandem.
Sennett (2008) further describes the development of skill in craftwork in a manner similar to flow in the process of glass making: “She lost awareness of her body making contact with the hot glass and became all-absorbed in the physical material as the end in itself.” He continues by stating, “If I may put this yet another way, we are now absorbed in something, no longer self-aware, even of our bodily self. We have become the thing on which we are working” (174). As such, the process of becoming wholly engrossed in an activity—as is necessary to achieve a flow state—is part of craftwork as well. In both cases, happiness is linked to work that is challenging, intrinsically rewarding, and even playful (Sennett 2008; McGonigal 2011).
While the process of hacking comes bundled with its own configuration of emotional ups and downs, separate but related phenomenological sensations emerge upon completion of a hack. These emotions range from a kind of general pleasure to a jubilant euphoria. John had difficulty summarizing how it felt to complete a project. He could only summarize the feeling as follows: “It feels pretty good . . . Whenever I accomplish something, it feels pretty good. So . . . good.” He then goes on to describe it as an “a-ha!” moment accompanied by a “sense of accomplishment you get from understanding something.” Roger describes the sensation of accomplishing a hack as a sense of confidence tied to intelligence: “You feel like you are smart. At the moment. Like, you are learning all of these intricate things and you are getting around them. And you are solving the problem.” Further, he described cracking the digital rights management (DRM) protocol on “Sim City”—the Electronic Arts game reviled at the time among hackers and gamers for its extremely restrictive copy-protection measures—as associated with a sense of victory and accomplishment: “It was a great feeling. It was like, ‘I beat you! I beat you Origin!’”16
Providing a more detailed account, Pete describes hacking—focusing primarily on how it feels to finish a hack:
Oh, man . . . It feels good. . . . You know what I love about hacking? It’s the ability to create. It isn’t necessarily just the high of breaking into something. It’s the ability to be able to be creative on how you got in in the first place. Or if it’s something that you’re looking at and how the creativity of like . . . “Hey, I made [it] this way and it scales.” And it’s like . . . you make something new. You thought of it a different way. And I . . . I posted once on my Facebook that there is no drug on this planet that a teenager can take that replaces the feeling you get from being . . . [in] your best moments in creativity. And that’s how it feels. It’s a rush. It feels good. There is still a piece of validation and recognition to it. Sometimes you get to share it with people. That community sense is also—when people get to use the tool that you might’ve written, when people were using my software,17 it felt good. You feel useful. And it helped people. It changed lives in some ways.
Pete describes hacking as containing a “rush” and that it “feels good.” He also associates a particular “high”—equating the process of hacking with taking drugs and associating that with the desire to do more hacking. Poacher (2007, 11) echoes this association between hacking and a chemical high: “It’s the ‘hacker high’—that feeling you get from acquiring knowledge that they don’t want you to have and getting it without them ever knowing.” Pete also associated emotions with the social aspects of accomplishing a hack. Should a hack be made known, a person can gain a sense of “validation and recognition.”
Some accounts describe accomplishing a hack as liberating—akin to being released from a prison. Sairys (2004, 46–47) describes the process of breaking through network restrictions in such a manner: “Another check at the network computer made me laugh a little more. TROY_Proxy was the name of the machine [that] housed the friendly BESS [a web filtering program] guard dog. A simple DEL [delete] statement would get rid of it all. Fortunately, none of us had malicious intent. At this point, the network was at our disposal, and even though there was nothing we wanted from all those folders, it was sure nice to know that they were available to us. It was like being released from a prison.” Susan describes completing a hack in a similar manner. “When you finally figure it out . . . It’s like . . . someone let you out of your cage. And you’re like . . . ‘I’m free.’” In both of these cases, the catharsis of accomplishing a task feels like one is being freed—a release. The implication here is that when working towards a goal, the hacker feels beholden to the task and even trapped by it until the job is done.
In the process of hacking, one is confronted with tedium and frustration that can, if things align properly, result in a positive flow experience. When one is in a flow state and completes their task, they may be rewarded with positive euphoric sensations, like those previously described. McGonigal (2011, 33) describes this as fiero, the Italian term for “pride.” “Fiero is what we feel after we triumph over adversity. You know it when you feel it—and when you see it. That’s because we almost all express fiero in exactly the same way: we throw our arms over our heads and yell.” Miles describes the achievement of a hacking goal as an “epic win,” drawing from the work of McGonigal (2011). He also describes the emotional experience of completing a hack:
It’s a success thing. You can, you know, put a bunch of effort . . . cognitive effort into a task and when . . . [snaps fingers] you get done, it’s [like] . . . you’ve won. . . . You’ll learn something and it becomes . . . that moment of epiphany, which is sort of a—a transient nirvana . . . because you’re not really expecting it to happen exactly when it happens. You think maybe it might happen but you are so busy working on it [that] you are not—there is not really a lot of expectation there . . . When you figured out that, you just get this rush of, you know, kind of endorphins, you know, to varying degrees. You know, it’s a win. You won the big game. You’ve conquered the evil dictator. You know, you’ve defeated Dracula. . . . It feels good. You gain knowledge from it. You get this happy feeling through acquiring knowledge. You get happy feelings from being able to solve a problem.
Importantly, fiero occurs upon completion of some sort of challenge—a problem was overcome. In many ways then, considering the cathartic and euphoric descriptions of hacking provided previously, we can conclude that accomplishing a good and challenging hack provides the sensation of fiero.18 In this sense, fiero can be seen as the result of satisfying and challenging work—an emotional payoff apparently beneficial to craftspersons and hackers alike. Considering that craftwork involves similar experiences with flow, it would not be hard to imagine how the violinist, the bricklayer, or the surgeon would gain positive feelings in a similar manner from a job well done. However, such feelings like fiero may be more intense through work with high technology (such as through video games and software) because of its relatively immediate forms of reinforcement and feedback (McGonigal 2011).
The final link articulated in this study between hacking and craftwork is that both are transgressive to one degree or another (interviewees = 13; 92.86%; CA items = 86; 44.56%). Transgression is a lived experience laden with emotion—a cultural manifestation and a political act of subversion and resistance (Ferrell, Hayward, and Young 2008). Previous work has discussed craftwork as transgressive because of its tendency to fly in the face of the modern politics of routinization and bureaucratization (Ferrell 2004). While hacking comprises a variety of activities spanning different types of technology and legality, it is always transgressive through its emphasis on resisting and transcending social boundaries. In this vein, Coleman (2012) has noted that the history of hacking is laden with the politics of resistance. Additionally, such subversion is also consistent with Svetlana Nikitina’s (2012) characterization of hackers as a sort of creative trickster.
Though the persistent theme of transgression comprises the focus of this section, the reader may unduly gain the impression that such behavior is “negative” in line with the socially constructed perceptions of hacking. Instead, it should be remembered that hacking consists of activities ranging across the moral spectrum—a tendency shared by craftwork as well: “Craftsmanship is certainly, from an ethical point of view, ambiguous. Robert Oppenheimer was a committed craftsman; he pushed his technical skills to the limit to make the best bomb he could . . . The craftsman thus both stands in Pandora’s shadow and can step out of it” (Sennett 2008, 11). The same cultural process and practice of craftwork yielded penicillin as well as the atomic bomb. Likewise, hacking can be applied to something as seemingly benign as open-source programming or as harmful as stealing a person’s life savings (not all who do either of these activities are hackers, however). In this way, the essence of hacking and craftwork are amoral in that they both stand “in Pandora’s shadow and can step out of it” (11). Regardless of morality, however, the transgressive edge persists.
In the public eye, hacking is automatically associated with criminal computer activity. As previously stated, however, many hacking activities exist that are not criminal, such as open-source programming (Coleman 2013). Even the activities that are usually considered criminal are not always illegal. For example, if a hacker breaks into a network system he or she owns, it is often legal. Even in the case of legal hacking, however, the particular activities still often have a transgressive quality or are embedded with the politics of resistance and subversion. When working with technology and software, as Danny states, “if you have to break a few things, you know, that’s okay . . . especially rules.”
Of course, rules are not the only things that hacking can violate. Expectations can also be broken through hacking. As Harvey suggests: “Hacking has to have that going-outside-what-people-think-you-should-be-doing.” Regarding software and hardware, designers are said to not only create the technology, but also create a series of expectations for what can and should be done with it. According to Rick, “When you set up . . . any kind of system . . . computer system, social system, government . . . you set up some rules.” Lifeguard (2011, 16) expresses a similar sentiment: “I believe a person is only a hacker if another calls them one. Perhaps a better definition is a person who manipulates a system in ways other than were intended by the system designers and operators. I feel hacking is more than just penetrating systems without permission, but there is definitely an overlap of skills.”
Additionally, as previously described, hacking involves breaking and reconfiguring. Part of this breaking process also involves doing new and creative things. As Aidan states, “Hacking is doing stuff you generally are not supposed to be doing or . . . finding new ways of doing something.” In this sense, hacking means moving past designer expectations for systems and reinventing what can be done. Such transgressions harken back to the creative unconventionality described earlier as key for the hacker mentality.19
Open-source software programming comprises a controversial section of the hacking community. Some members (including some who were interviewed in this study) assert that free and open-source software programming is not hacking; others insist otherwise. For those who claim it is not, the reasons given are typically that F/OSS programing does not involve breaking of some sort. As Aidan claims, “Open-source projects are inherently open so there’s no reason to hack them if they are open.”
But for those who do consider open-source software to be hacking, the grounds for such are exploration, creation, and defiance of expectations or even subversion of convention. F/OSS hackers are those pushing at the edges of what can be done with programming. To explain this perspective, Miles analogizes such programming to woodworkers who carve intricate and creative things out of wood: “At the same time does that go back to you know, wood carving and stuff like that . . . Those are guys that are . . . They’re pushing the edges of what can be done with wood—what can be done with those tools.” This sense also heralds back to the understanding of what it meant to be a hacker in the early days of the MIT Tech Model Railroad Club when hackers were known for taking creative and novel approaches toward solving problems while trying to push the boundaries of what could be done with code within the relatively restrictive computational parameters at the time (Levy 1984).20
F/OSS programming may also be considered transgressive because its philosophical logic often resists proprietary software and, in many instances, the capitalist notion of intellectual property. The very notion of programming in a manner which is (a) not for monetary gain, and (b) open and available for others contradicts traditional intellectual property arrangements (see also Söderberg 2008). 2600 author glutton (2010, 50) characterizes this resistance to greed as such: “True hackers aren’t motivated by a lust for money, and the movie [Hackers] reinforced this by having the villains be money-hungry goons. Historically, hackers have made lousy criminals, simply because they aren’t criminal. Sure, a little money was made along the way—for example, Woz and Jobs selling blue boxes [phone phreaking devices]. For the most part, however, hackers pretty much lack the ability to break laws for money. If we were greed-focused, we wouldn’t share our findings with others, or contribute to open-source projects.” Of course, as admitted in glutton’s argument, sometimes hacking can be done for gain. What seems to matter is that material gain is not the primary cultural motivating factor.
As stated previously, hacking is not always illegal. When a law violation is committed, the criminal component is sometimes thought of as incidental: “I mean the crime was always incidental” (Harvey). In this sense, the criminal act is a stepping stone on the way to solving a problem or completing a project. Sometimes, however, the criminal component of an act can be seductive (Katz 1988). The thrills sought by hackers break away from otherwise mundane and “safe” uses for computational technology—similar to how “skilled craft work produces idiosyncratic designs unimaginable within the repetitions of the assembly line” (Ferrell 2004, 297–298).
For hackers, this seduction seems to largely concern the notion of trespass. To communicate the rush of breaking in and illicitly trespassing into a computer system, Danny compares hacking to another subcultural practice: Urban Exploration.21 He states, “I mean that kind of first got me interested in this sort of thing. Because there’s an adrenaline rush to knowing you are somewhere where you shouldn’t be.” Similarly, The Piano Guy (2009, 60) states that a quick way to get a hacker to want to trespass is to label something as off-limits, thus creating an enticement to trespass: “Now, if you want to attract the undivided attention of flies, get some dog poop. If you want to attract the undivided attention of a hacker, put a sticker on it that says ‘for staff use only.’” As demonstrated here, the injection of trespassing and other criminal behavior can create an additional thrill associated with act of hacking, which can provide a further motivation. Previous research similarly describes excitement as a key motivating factor in hacking: “When hackers are asked what motivates them to write free code or crack computer systems, their answers are many and diverse. A recurrent theme, however, is the thrill they get from doing it” (Söderberg 2008, 2; see also Turgeman-Goldschmidt 2005).
The reader should note that some of the subversive nature of hacking as well as its various thrills might separate hacking from craftwork. Certainly the potential for moral or amoral behavior exists in both, as previously stated. An argument can also be made that certain crafts engage in similar forms of transgression through domain shifts, practical creativity, and other dynamics previously described (Sennett 2008). These links, however, between hacking and craft do not seem to be as strong as they are for other areas. In this way, hacking—particularly illicit hacking—may involve types of subversion and thrills not commonly found in other forms of craft. In this manner, hacking may constitute a unique sort of craft through the intensity of its subversion and its ties to thrill-seeking behavior among some members of its community.
As articulated in this chapter, and central to the political economic arguments presented later in chapter 4, hacking is articulated as a form of labor work similar to previous criminological analyses of other illicit activities and subcultures like professional thievery and drug dealing (Adler 2003; Fagan and Freeman 1999; King and Chambliss 1984; Letkemann 1973; Sutherland 1937). Where previous works have attempted to isolate common themes which unify hacking, such as a hacker ethic (see Brown 2008; Himanen 2001; Levy 1984), the central argument advanced in this analysis is that hacking comprises a kind of craft. Both hacking and craftwork consist of similarities across mental processes, with an emphasis on skill, ownership, commitment, similar social-learning structures, process over results, and emotional experiences. Additionally, both hacking and craftwork are stitched together through the politics of resistance and transgression—though, admittedly, hacking may be more flagrant in its transgressive tendencies. Though the analysis put forth a complex arrangement of characteristics that might be seen as comprising the eidos of hacking, these characteristics may be summarized succinctly. The definition advanced here is that hacking is a transgressive craft. That said, craft has two meanings, both of which are equally applicable. The first is that craft is a kind of skill-based productive activity. The second is that engaging in craft can be a guileful and subversive behavior, typically used to describe a person as “crafty.” As hacking represents craft in both senses, I posit that the essence of hacking can be distilled into a single term: hacking is craft(y).
In light of these findings, it is abundantly clear that simplistic definitions that identify hacking as any kind of illegal computer intrusion are grossly inadequate (for further explication, see Steinmetz 2015b). Breaking away from such stale perspectives, hacking is articulated here as more than an act or behavior—but instead as a cultural practice tied to work. The very notion of the hacker is intimately linked to the material relationship between labor and the mind (or the development of cultural identity). Additionally, because of its inherently transgressive edge, hacking presents a kind of craft with the politics of resistance running through to the core—resistance against convention, norms, expectations, and even law. As Sennett (2008) declares, the specter of harm looms over craftwork, while the spirit of transgression flows through hacking. Both hacking and craft, therefore, are “never innocent” (294).
Hackers of open-source software craft novel programs; hardware hackers craft inventive new hardware forms and configurations; malware writing hackers craft programs that take advantage of weaknesses in security; and computer security intrusion hackers craft ways to circumvent restrictions on computer networks. These hackers, and others, are defined by their process, their approach, their perspectives—they are defined by craftwork. Making the connection between hacking and this form of labor then opens up this work to consider how hackers are enmeshed in the dynamics of political economy as transgressive intellectual craftspersons. After all, if hacking is a form of labor—as articulated here—then the question becomes: What is being produced and for whom? While this may seem to be a simple question on its face, hacking is drawn into the political economic dynamics of production and consumption as well as deviance and social control. One more piece of the puzzle is absent, however. For a Marxist analysis of hacking to be successful, it will take more than establishing hacking as a predominantly middle-class phenomenon and a form of labor. Indeed, no political economic analysis is complete without consideration of the state to some degree. As such, this examination now turns to hacker politics and philosophy with explicit focus on its perceptions towards government, law, and law enforcement: the focus of chapter 3.