1    Them and us \&*A^<2 .
The hack
Thehack 13
Sfcto two distinct, though overlapping, systems of collective action. One |§|onsists of the people who co-operate to produce that act in question. The IfjJBiiier consists of the people who co-operate in the drama of morality by Ifl^hich 'wrongdoing' is discovered and dealt with, whether that procedure is l^riy-rnal or quite informal. r$fi/ih. - (Becker 1963: 185)
sSfyA^'-k | 11 his conflict between the computer underground and those opposing groups '£llII|p^who leek to stigmatise it as deviant that makes hackers an intriguing exemplar of v^^^^^hoWsoc'1^ practices dynamically emerge within technological environments.
It is an interesting fact that most scientific research and speculation on deviance concerns itself with the people who break rules rather than with those who make and enforce them. If we are to achieve a full understanding of deviant behavior, we must get these two possible foci of inquiry into balance. We must see deviance, and the outsiders who personify the abstract conception, as a consequence of a process of interaction between people, some of whom in the service of their own interests make and enforce rules which catch others who, in the service of their own interests, have committed acts which are labeled deviant... It is, of course, possible to see the situation from both sides. But it cannot be done simultaneously. That is, we cannot construct a description of a situation or process that in some way fuses the perceptions and interpretations made by both parties involved in a process of deviance. "We cannot describe a 'higher reality' that makes sense of both sets of views. We can describe the perspectives of one group and see how they mesh or fail to mesh with the perspectives of the other group: the perspectives of rule-breakers as they meet and conflict with the perspectives of those who enforce the rules, and vice versa. But we cannot understand the situation or process without giving full weight to the differences between the perspectives of the two groups involved.
{Becker 1963:163, 173)
The key focus of this work is not just the computer underground in isolation, but rather upon the them and us conflictory relationship that exists between the computer security industry and the computer underground. In order to understand a social group labelled as deviant one needs to pay due attention to its ongoing interaction with those labelling it and not just attempt to research the group being labelled as deviant
We can construct workable definitions either of particular actions people might commit or of particular categories of deviance as the world (especially, but not only, the authorities) defines them. But we cannot make the two coincide completely, because they do not do so empirically. They belong
JTlie contested term
J=* Inits original technological sense, the word 'hacker', coined at MIT in the gs^11960s, simply connoted a computer virtuoso. That's still the meaning Bp. enshrined in the 1994 edition of the New Hacker's Dictionary, which gffc-defihes such a person as someone 'who enjoys exploring the details of gi^programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities; one who ||p»programs enthusiastically, even obsessively*.
pfe- (Roush 1995: 1)
JpvThe word hack doesn't really have 69 different meanings. ... In fact, hack fe- has only one meaning, an extremely subtle and profound one which defies »■» articulation. Which connotation is implied by a given use of the word llpdepends in similarly profound ways on context ... Hacking might be char-|Cfc- acterized as 'an appropriate application of ingenuity'. Whether the result is quick-and-dirty patchwork job or a carefully crafted work oF art, you have to admire the cleverness that went into it. An important secondary meaning Tof liack is 'a creative practical joke'. This kind of hack is easier to explain to 11 non-hackers than the programming kind. Of course, some hacks have both '••natures.1
Before looking in detail at the rhetorical conflicts that have "occurred between 1 JS^g's supporters and opponents, we turn to the act itself and the semantic Jate that surrounds it. I seek to highlight the slippery nature of the term and uphasise that there is no one single, uncontested description of hacking. The I oL it has disputed meanings and connotations for different groups is addressed r j^nns of group boundary formation within computing. I trace the evolution in - ta?l:mcaning 0f the term and show it to be part of a complex social process in *M.hich certain computer users have become marginalised within the wider computing community. Whether such marginaiisation is justified or not is Perhaps a moot point given the potentially serious implications it may have for ™e computers that now saturate our society, an issue I will return to in the concluding chapter.
The meaning of the term, hacking, has gone through several changes from its
14- Thehack
original dictionary definition: of 'cut or chop roughly; mangle: cut (one's wai through thick Foliage etc: manage, cope with': to its present definition of: 'gaj| unauthorised access (to data in a computer)' [The Concise Oxford Dictionar, eighth edition]. It has also evolved from the MIT days or the 1950s onwards when it was first used in the context of computing. The phrase was original! used to denote the highly skilled but largely playful activity of academi computer programmers searching for the most elegant and concise pragrarr -ming solution to any given problem [Levy 19B4). It has since been increasingli associated with its present-day connotation of illicit computer intrusion.
The origins of the phrase, hacking, relate to the problems encountered with programming the early cumbersome and huge computers such as the IBM 70' described by Levy as a 'hulking giant* (Levy 1984: 25). These valve-based machines were notoriously unreliable, a factor that, combined with the relativ immaturity of programming methods, led to solutions to any particuU computing problem being rather haphazardly constructed (thus meeting th phrase's first connotation of something being fashioned roughly: being hackt together). In addition, the baroque complexity and iinmanageability of early sofi ware systems can also be associated with hacking's connotations of 'managing or coping with' and 'cutting through thick foliage'. The key themes from th various   definitions   of   hacking  relate  to:   exploration;   obsession;   an1 ingenuity/creativity. The potentially exploratory and obsessive elements t hacking are explored in the next chapter; at this point we will concentrate upon the ingenuity and creativity said to lie behind the bona fide hack.
Thehack
Bobby was a cowboy, and ice was the nature of his game, ice from IC1 Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics. The matrix is an abstract represeii tation of the relationship between data systems. Legitimate programme] jack themselves into their employers' sector of the matrix and find then-selves surrounded by bright geometries representing the corporate dab Towers and fields of it ranged in the colorless nonspace of the simulatio matrix, the electronic consensus-hallucination that facilitates the handlin and exchange of massive quantities of data. Legitimate programmers never see the walls of ice they work behind, the walls of shadow that screen thci operations from others, from industrial-espionage artists and hustlers 13« Bobby Quine. Bobby was a cowboy. Bobby was a cracksman, a burgla casing mankind's extended electronic nervous system, rustling data and credit in the crowded matrix, monochrome nonspace where the only stars are dense concentrations of information.
(Gibson 1986b: 197)
The basis of hacking culture is unsurprisingly 'the hack'. The hack did, and still does in various quarters, refer to the performing of a neat programming trick.
Thehack 15
^^pSVits present predominant connotations of illicit computer break-ins, S^jgm^Kaclnng circles it is more widely denned as an attempt to make use of any B^feuiology in an original, unorthodox and inventive way. The main bone of Ijliin^cntipn hi these differing interpretations is the extent to which the ingenuity j|p§^-mei;hack should be made subordinate to its legality. Whilst this debate will be ni^^ueil-in depth later, the hack is initially presented here in its widest sense in ^^^Her.td assess any potential commonality that may exist between all its illegal, ^^feliitv'ous and legitimately ingenious forms.
™^iKiriac (1984) provides a thorough delineation of the main elements of jlllng;- She 'conflates the wider definition of illicit hacking with the general nffifciHtyof those who hack in its sense of seeking to manipulate any technology unorthodox means. She refers to the hade as being: 'the holy graiL It is a ^^^feoncept which exists independendy of the computer and can best be presented "^^^f^^thrBugh an example using another teclinology complex enough to support its !_^^^^g^nyCn,ion of hacking and hackers' (Turkic 19fl4: 232). The example she uses is ^^^^^^fh'afc/of phone-phreaking2 and one of its main adherents, John Draper, alias !^^^^^^/^m-GriflKA3. The hack, in this instance, refers to such technological stunts as ^^^^^^I'^hg two phones on a table; talking into one and hearing your voice in the ^^^^^potlitf-after a time-delay in which the original call has first been routed around p.1,*-!^ | .-..world.
^^^^^^SaTurkle interpreted this type of hack in the following r
mHm>~
;s|[|Appreriating what made the call around the world a great hack is an exer-S&iipEiin hacker aesthetics. It has the quality of [a] magician's gesture: a truly ^SsQrprising result produced with ridiculously simple means. Equally impor-i^&rtarit: Crunch had not simply stumbled on a curiosity. The trick worked m&fpEcause Crunch had acquired an impressive amount of expertise about the ^teSlephone system. That is what made the trick a great hack, otherwise it lllfglvbuld have been a very minor one. Mastery is of the essence everywhere |||lgtotlun hacker culture. Third, the expertise was acquired unofficially and at 5; ' the expense of a big system. The hacker is a person outside the system who l||||aslrjever excluded by its rules.
(Turkic 1984: 232)
gS$ksM$^'1 main characteristics or a hack are thus:
llpft.'SiinpUcity: the act has to be simple but impressive, llsfeiyjastery: the act involves sophisticated technical knowledge. •Micitiicss: ^c act   'against the rules*.
r manner:
aggggj^fhe ubiquitous hack and the kick
is important to note that a key aspect or Turkle's analysis is the notion that the burial attributes of a hack can be found in relation to artefacts other than
16   The hack
computers. In keeping with the perspective of some hackers she highlights the eclectic pragmatism with which hackers characteristically approach all technologies. Hacking has traditionally involved such diverse activities as lock-picking and model-railway maintenance (and the accompanying tinkering with gadgetry that this involves).4 Hackers themselves express the wide range of their potential targets:
In ray day to day life, I find myself hacking everything imaginable. I hack traffic lights, pay phones, answering machines, micro-wave ovens, VCR's, you name it, without even thinking twice. To me hacking is just changing the conditions over and over again until there's a different response. In today's mechanical world, the opportunities for this kind of experimentation are endless.
(Kane 1989: 67-9)
The heterogeneous range of technological targets considered 'hackable' is described by R,, a Dutch hacker, who argued that hacking is not just about computer break-ins but should be defined so that it does not
only pertain to computers but pertains to any field of technology. Like, if you haven't got a ketde to boil water with and you use your coffee machine to boil water with, then that in my mind is a hack. Because you're using the technology in a way that it's not supposed to be used. Now that also pertains to telephones, if you're going to use your telephone to do various things that aren't supposed to be done with a telephone, then that's a hack. If you are going to use your skills as a car mechanic to make your motor do things it's not supposed to be doing, then that's a hack. So, for me it's not only computers it's anything varying from lacks, computers, telephones, magnetic cards, you name it.
(R., Utrecht interview)
Hackers' brushes with the criminal system have led to vivid illustrations oľ the ubiquitous nature of their activity and the extent to which it consists of an ability to adapt to the circumstances one finds oneself in. There is, for example, Kevin Poulsen's account of his time in prison:
'I've learned a lot from my new neighbors', Poulsen, the quintessential cyberpunk ... who describes hacking as performance art, said from behind the glass of the maximum security visitor's window. 'Now I know how to light a cigarette from an outlet and how to make memamphetarnine from chicken stock'.
(Fine 1995: website)
The phone network was the archetypal system for the early precursors of hackers, the pfumt-phreaks, the Internet providing the next complex technical
The hack 17
HB^^:;ripe for exploration. In addition to such examples of hands-on hacking, ■HHj^i: involve ingenious manipulations of whatever artefacts arc at hand, Hugging can also refer more abstractly to the 'system' one is confronted with. A lltsliacker using the sobriquet, Agent Steal, for example, published an article from iftlllal Prison entitled: 'Everything a hacker needs to know about getting busted ii|ly'$he feds', the theme of which centres around the notion that the legal system, m$iS^&ny other system, is there to be hacked:
^^^^PSl'" The criminal justice system is a game tD be played, both by prosecution and sjBanib^i ■ defense. And if you have to be a player, you would be wise to learn the rules Iffiiffi&iffii.t^ jof engagement. The writer and contributors of this file have learned the lltlbard way. As a result we turned our hacking skills during the times of our KSihcarceratiDn towards the study of criminal law and, ultimately, survival. K&aving filed our own motions, written our own briefs and endured life in IE-prison, we now pass this knowledge back to the hacker community. Learn |ltarom our experiences -.. and our mistakes.
■pi,;.'. (Petersen 1997: website)
fil-""'-
SgSyo Dutch hackers, Rop Gongrijp5 and M-,6 in relating some of their activi-|p|ijlustrate how broad the desire to technologically explore can be. M. claimed Ihave physically explored the subterranean tunnels and elevator shafts of iiSmstcrdam including Government nuclear fall-out shelters (Utrecht interview). ^^^^^■^Gbrigiijp, similarly, related how he had entered the out-of-bounds areas of build-™™™%^'"ings such as banks by pretending to accompany legitimate tour groups and then ^^Pookthe first opportunity to wander off on his own, assessing the security of the ^ggiiteiand then somewhat cheekily informing the security staff of that assessment.
[•he 'technology', which is the subject of their curiosity in these cases, simply S&lfigthe architecture and security features of buildings that they found inter-Iffping; Gongrijp described in a further example of the heterogeneity of hacking, &g^:'the Wageningen agricultural university a couple of years ago had a couple ffif|;stiidents doing a project enhancing the genes of marijuana plants, to me that's ||§ne-hacking, it's more than science, it's just somebody gets a kick out of it'.7 He pu|jued that hacking is a frame of mind, a sort of intellectual curiosity that Sl^ches itself to more than just one type of technology or technological artefact gforjine a hacker is more all-round than to some people, I think a hacker is not a ^pi'ihacker unless he has a basis in two or three skills, not just hacking Unix ^systems but also a little bit of something else, electronics, audio hacking or sdme-|§Bhg general' (Amsterdam interview).
-   This heterogeneity of hacking's targets fuels the tick gained from satisfying the primary urge of technological curiosity:
gfSjv;>in the early days of say the uses of electricity and how to generate it, were ||:?;: first developed, I think Tesla and all the people who were playing with it fpi;   then were as much hackers as most computer hackers are now, they are
18   Tht hack ^
playing on the frontier of technology and all those hefty experiments were! . not only done for science, they were done because they got a lack out of it -M
(Gongrijp: Amsterdam interview)! The kick, thus gained, crucially depends upon an clement of inventiveness that! serves to distinguish 'true' hacks from those that could be labelled as acts pfll Mnlendo Penevenma, that is to say, hacks who exhibit large amounts or concentrkiS tion and dedication rather than ingenuity. Methods of hacking entry may 3 become widely publicised by means of the various branches of the hackei grapevine, for example, electronic and paper-based specialist magazines, or even j word-of-electronic-mouth. From such sources, hacking 'cook-books' of prepack- q aged instructions result Those that predominantly, or exclusively, use such- l| sources of information far the illicit use of a technology could be labelled il hackers since they fulfil the main requirement of the pejorative definition cl hacking: the illicit use of a technology. The Dutch hackers I spoke with, however, 'I were keen to differentiate themselves from such people, by imparting thei- s concept similar to Turkie's description of the Holy Grail type hade 1 Using the example of phone-plircaking phone calls Gongrijp illustrates tins M distinction between a technical and a 'true' hack
it depends on how you do it, the thing is that you've got your guys that thin. || up these things, they consider the technological elements of a phone-booth, | and they think, 'hey, wait a minute, if I do this, this could work*, so as ai H experiment, they cut the wire and it works, now THEY'RE hackers. Okay, so it's been published, so Joe Bloggs reads this and says, 'hey, great, I have to || phone my folks up in Australia*, so he goes out, cuts the wire, makes phone || calls, leaves it regardless. He's a stupid ignoramus, yeah? The second situation is another hacker reads this and thinks, 'hey, this is an idea, let's expand on this'. So what he does is go to a phone box, he cuts the wire, puts a magnetic switch in between, puts the magnetic switch up against the case, doses the door again and whenever he wants to make a free phone call, he puts a magnet on top, makes the wires disconnect, and he has a free phone call, goes away, takes the magnet away and everybody else has to pay. Now he's more of a hacker straight away, it's not a simple black and white thing.
(Gongrijp: Utrecht interview)
Chris Goggans, a US hacker, makes a distinction between hackers and what he terms computer criminals. He says:
People have.been trying to come up with these 'hacker-cracker knick-knack paddywacker' tags, but here's the difference: a hacker is someone who is interested in computer systems and networks and wants to take them to whatever possible reach they can go. A cracker is someone who breaks software copy protection.
1 (Goggans: email interview)
3e
The hack 19
ffjniputer criminal, meanwhile, at least according to one definition has a ^Bc%bal of targeting someone's mail or research, or going after other infor-.^oft'considered proprietary' (Lange 1996: 3), Thus in the definition favoured
JUff-Styled 'real1 hackers a true hack should involve an element of originality HoKed in the unorthodox subversion of any given technical situation. There tegnous forms a hack can take, and a hacker tends to be defined not just by Ifsihe does but by how he does it Gongrijp, for example, mischievously lifted out to me, as we walked through an Amsterdam housing estate, " iiigly vivid yellow paint on road over-pass supports. He explained that it was lin^Mble'ahti-gralliti paint and observed wryly that people could cause havoc if Tused such paint for graffiti purposes (Amsterdam interview).
■p
sjgjaiiiial activities of hackers
Sdngside the more contestable categories of hacking activity with their own
Jifportcd ethic and kick there are some more straightforwardly criminal variants Stfichtiblogical endeavour that should perhaps be acknowledged early on. jmost of the emphasis placed upon criminal types of motivation for " -SilHIang comes from figures within the computer security industry, conventional -fminahty was also recognised by several of the hackers I spoke to, one of l&tfoinpD., whilst claiming it was only to see if it could be done, demonstrated an ^fffcstablc of the cafe in which the interview took place his prototype magnetic edtecard copier
ffr^By the way, this is the card-copier, I'm proud of it [So what does it copy?] ^^yEverything. [Everything with a magnetic strip?] Yeah, Til let you hear how a Tgfecredit-card sounds, the trick is you take two cards, you slide them through jllplhefe at the same time, yeah well it gives the same sound but then it copies Blfioin this one tD this one, you can also use this for credit cards, there's a . -gp;*-' different sound, I can hear what kind of card it is through the ear-phones. niajjpf*7' (D.: Utrecht interview)
Ipinularly, whilst interviewing at a hacker group's flat in Amsterdam I was also l|flhbwii;thcir latest prototype touch-tone dialler that they were in the process of aturising further, and which was being used as a means of phreaking free jphone calls by emulating electronically the switching tones of the international -digital phone systems:
Well, I can show you something, this device, this chip, is also available in a very small package, it will fit into this whole thing [a small touch-tone dialler case]. This whole prototype will be in here [large sandwich board of elec-' ~a |     tronics], he [a colleague] is working on the board now. What this basically '       docs is, it's a touch-tone dialler that has extra features which mean you can ' make tones which arc called C5 to control the phone system and to tell
phone switches in other countries that they should complete calls without
20   The hack
charging you for it, so with this system you can. make Free phone calk, aiiji it's all going to be in a little dialler this big, it's pretty nifty ... you can havc^ make these tones and try things at different times, there's all these protocol!! far in-band telephone signalling in there, it's fully programmable. ... \^f| make our phone calls with this type of technology so it doesn't cojf anything- .
{G.: Amsterdam inteiviejp
Whereas G and his colleagues were not, or would not admit to being, iniegi ested in the potential commercial aspects of this activity, D. was much marcf forthcoming. When I asked him about monetary reward being a possible motiq vating factor behind hacking, he related how: iljL
... >y I
A friend of my brother .,. is only concerned with the money he gets for it t. [and] all kinds of schemes he has to make things. Free phone calls, there's <j lot of business in it. They sell cards, copy cards and things like that Ca % phones: they change the chip with the ID of the car phone, things like that;.' 1
(D.: Utrecht intervievV) I
He then proceeded to give more details of his own personal involvement fan scheme aimed at funding an excessively large phone bill that had been accumu | lated as a product of his hacking exploits: * |
The first system we attacked was the Spanish telephone system, it was aboui| seven years ago, we didn't have a meter to check the costs, later we found| that when we called Spain, there was one special tone which activated thi | computer and we had a phone bill of 10,000 guilders, so we made littl | boxes, blue boxes, and me and my brother went to Spain with the boxes | Well, we first sent the taxi driver to pick up the boxes and then waited to se | if the taxi driver came back without the police and then we took the boxe i| and sold them to all kinds of people, dealers of cars and such like, it w•' very hard to deal with the Spanish people because they can't get mono ; from the banks very easily, they have to show where the money is going, pe '| box we asked 1,500 guilders, so after ten boxes we paid the bill and got bats 3 to Holland. ■ ?$
(D.: Utrecht interview (|
D. believes that there is the possibility that hacking expertise will become; more widely used by criminal elements in society:
If you keep it illegal then I think in the future there will be more people wh >. will be interested in it, really malicious people, right now there aren't s > ■■ many people who want to sell it to espionage or companies or whatever, hi t I think in the future there will be more people, you always see people wh' > are interested but they don't have the means to hack themselves. There waj )
. The hade 21
lilljkers' party, the 'galactic hackers' party' in Amsterdam and we were Jp^jftO'Riake free phone calls and always someone behind you, some Egf^er from Egypt 'free phone calls, free phone calls'- The only thing he j|§iH%y in Dutch was 'free phone calls', and they offer a lot of money to jllllleljee phone calls and stuff: often companies if they want to know some-jffflr5else about other companies — like a friend of mine had an account llllwDuld check out all companies, they were offered money to check out ^^febrnpanies but when they wouldn't do it, they would get in trouble. i (D.: Utrecht interview)
lllpiother Dutch hacker, also gave his perspective on monetary-induced •In an attempt to quantify a perhaps inevitably vague area, I asked him iPlefSe a percentage figure for the number of hackers that hack for monetary ^^^S;replied:
^^po^ybu can't say it in percentage, I'd guess it's about five persons in the Jfillllipie;of Holland that do it for the money. For instance I had a hack and ^^femebody wanted to publish it, he gave me money for it Now, did I do it for -^HSBB^^Utj]c money? No, not initially, initially I did it for the kick, not because it was Piijcgal but for the kick. Okay, so I earned a litde money with it, big deal, I llpidil'tdo it for the money, and another reason is convenience, pure conve-JjjlpaitSe. It is very convenient if you can make free phone calls, it is absolutely ^Kpnyenient if you can pull copies off magnetic cards, it is very easy if you Mgffirjyt your TV at home without a de-scrambler, things like that And it's l|ip't"a kick, it's not a thrill, it's not that it's illegal, it's just pure convenience. Pjte' (R_: Utrecht interview)
IffljieSgnrtip in the early 1990s that was much more crimmal-minded, and |]|||gnised as such by G., D. and R., were known as the Amiga Kids, after the nputers they used most When discussing viruses D. described how:
i|Fhere are a lot of viruses in the Amiga world. That's one of the groups they jjKave to get rid of, the Amiga Kids, that's a real pain in the arse. Also for phackers, if we hack a system and they find out about it, like making free jpione calls, they spread it. It's incredible, those guys are really destructive, ? because when they use something they use it for software, we use it occa-Ssionally for hacking or making calls but they use it twenty-four hours a, day I'for software, they'll do anything for software, they use and abuse credit cards Jand things like that Anything for software, and a few of them, I know, are the ones that write viruses to combat other groups, to put viruses in the programs of other groups, I hate those guys. Yeah, here in Utrecht there are r! a lot of these groups and they card a lot of stuff, you know carding? Using f&        credit cards to get stuff, but illegally. They wear Rolexes, litde kids on the gffRgSF"   street with Rolexes around their wrists it's incredible.
(D.: Utrecht interview)
Whilst the hackers that formed the basis of this study were at pains to disassociate  themselves  from such  groups,   they recognised  the potential for ■ hacking-related activities to branch into criminal activity. A hacker called Maelstrom related how:
In 1989 a local friend put up a world headquarters BBS for the West German group Red Sector Inc. They were into writing Amiga demos, and were one of the top ten groups in the world, which got us a lot of interesting and well-known callers. We obtained a voice mailbox and put up a codelinc on it, which was very popular for a long time. RSI made me an offer: if I would give them stolen AT&T calling-card numbers to enable them to call the USA, they give me ail the hardware I needed to have the ultimate computer system. I was offered computers, high-speed modems, hard drives, and software ... the only catch was their method. Using CBI or TRWs computer, some people use credit-card numbers to steal merchandise, and by having stolen stuff sent to West Germany, they were able to escape detection when the theft was discovered since the post office there didn't keep records. This was against my morals, and I dropped out of the scene for a while.
(Maelstrom: email interview)
Finally, for obvious reasons, it was difficult to look in any depth at hacking conducted solely for criminal or monetary purposes, or even to check the absolute validity of claims such as D.'s above. What I did see of the above instances seemed to be real methods of fraud, and the hackers I spoke with, with the exception of the Zoetcrmecr group, all had knowledge of each other and seemed to verify each other's claims and accounts. Hacking with criminal intent or for monetary gain of some sort appeared, from my interviews in Holland at least, to be conducted on the fringes/margins of mainstream hacking and then only in order to fund their activity rather than for express monetary gain. The pressure to commercialise their activity may, however, be increasing as techniques become mare widely desired by traditional criminal groups.
Hacking culture
1§S
if
at
B
The hacking generations
The 'original* hackers were computer professionals who, in the mid-sixties, adopted the word 'hack' as a synonym for computer work, and particularly for computer work executed with a certain level of craftmanship. ... Then in the seventies, assorted techno-hippies emerged as the computerized .'    faction of the counterculture of the day. ... What characterized the second
* wave hackers was that they desperately wanted computers and computer systems designed to be useful and accessible to citizens. ... Finally, in the second half of the eighties the so-called cu emerged, appropriated the terms
;    'hacker' and 'hacking' and partly changed their meaning To the computer
^ underground, 'to hack' meant to break into or sabotage a computer system, and a 'hacker* was the perpetrator of such activities.
jT (Hannemyr 1997: 2)
i
In:die most seminal piece of work on hackers to date Levy (1984) describes ;thrcc generations of hackers who exhibited to various degrees qualities associated with the hacking's original connotation of playful ingenuity epitomised by :the earliest hackers, the pioneering computer aficionados at Mil's laboratories in lQic 1950s and 1960s. These aficionados formed the first generation of hackers, defined as those who were involved in the development of the earliest computer-programming techniques. The second generation are defined as those involved ;in bringing computer hardware to the masses with the development of the earliest PCs. The third generation refers to the programmers who became the leading lights in the advent of computer games architecture. The phrase haiker is now almost exclusively used to describe an addition to this schema: the fourth :generation of hackers who illicitly access other people's computers.
To the fourth generation of hackers can also arguably be added a new group: ■the mumserfs identified by Douglas Coupland in his novel of the same name.1 This generation represents the co-optation of hacker skills by commercial computing. Whilst there were still elements of this commercial acumen in hacking's second and third generations, they kept the positive connotations of ■tlic hacker sobriquet because their activity still retained the pioneering qualities