DOCSLIB.ORG

Computers As Invocational Media

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Computers As Invocational Media Computers as invocational media Thesis submitted towards the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Christopher Bradford Chesher BA (Media and Communications) Mitchell College of Advanced Eduction MA (Interdisciplinary Studies) University of New South Wales Department of Media and Communications Division of Society, Culture, Media and Philosophy College of Humanities and Social Sciences Macquarie University March 2001 Table of contents Table of contents.............................................................................................iii Acknowledgments ......................................................................................... vii Introduction .......................................................................................................1 1. Computers and the Humanities ................................................................33 2. Invoking concepts .......................................................................................94 3. Ontology of the invocational interval .................................................... 135 4. Command, memory and decision machines.......................................... 172 5. User design................................................................................................. 215 6. Invocational aesthetics ............................................................................. 252 7. Hypertext, technology and invocationary acts ...................................... 289 Conclusions.................................................................................................... 322 References ...................................................................................................... 329 Summary This thesis argues that computers are invocational media. It shows how this technological lineage can be defined not only by the power of computation, but also by the power of invocation — storing, generating and recalling images, sounds and simulations. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari, a wide literature on computer, medium theory and actor-network theory, it argues that invocational media are based on the ‘genetic element’ of invocation. The cultural practice of invocation, which has an ancient heritage, mixes command and memory to produce decisions. Invocational media not only answer calculations; they also invoke any number of dynamic new media environments. Summoning concepts from cultural milieux, they have been called on to invoke (among other things) ‘intelligence’, ‘life’ and even ‘reality’. Invocational media are as significant as previous historical transitions in media technology. If television brought secondary orality (Ong), invocational media bring nth oralities: chat, queries, e-mails and ICQ. Although technology has displaced conventional magic, tropes of magic recur in technology’s cultural imaginary. Invocational magic is domesticated and commodified. Hobbled together from surveillance, spectacle, command and control technologies, its powers are conditional. Users must answer ‘avocations’: standards that condition everything that is invocable. Invocational aesthetics are distinctive. Disregarding the computational aesthetics of pure mathematical form, users appreciate the emergent qualities of the invocational aesthetic: playable games, responsive interfaces, and immersive experiences. Everywhere, invocations are polyvocal, calling to wider assemblages. Hyperlinks combine technological systems, textual conventions and mediations of social commitments in producing invocationary speech acts. Acknowledgments Anyone who has attempted a PhD thesis knows that is not like any other project. It is sometimes referred to as an apprenticeship as an academic, and it has functioned in that way for me. As such an extensive project, it’s pretty hard to thank everyone who has helped in this process. Thanks, first, to my supervisors McKenzie Wark, Andrew Murphie and Anne Cranny-Francis for their indispensable guidance and support in the various stages of this process, including reading late drafts and providing very helpful comments. Thanks to my colleagues in Media and Communications at UNSW, Philip Bell, Gillian Fuller, Scott Shaner, Ross Harley, Brigid Costello, Alyssa Rothwell and Julie Miller. I am lucky to work with people I also consider as friends. I also appreciate the semester of leave that the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences gave me to work on this project during 2000. Thanks to Sherman Young, Belinda Barnet, Mitchell Whitelaw, Jackie Cook, Maria Stukoff and Sophea Lerner for help, comments, conversation and inspiration. Thanks to my friends in the Deleuze and Guattari reading group: Scott Sharpe, Maria Hynes, Lone Bertelsen, and others who participated. I took a journey with this group that directly and indirectly enriched my writing and thinking on this project. Particular thanks go to David Sutton, whose close reading of a late draft spurred me to make some crucial changes. Thanks to Terry and Greg Chesher not only for being responsible for my existence, but also for their direct help in writing, including proof-reading a late draft. viii of 364 Introduction Thanks to all the dogs and their owners in my local park, and to Flash, who helped keep me relatively sane. Thanks especially to Cathy O’Callaghan for her constant support and companionship. Chris Chesher — March 2001 viii Computers as invocational media I hereby certify that this thesis has not been submitted for a higher degree to any other University or Institution. Christopher Bradford Chesher Introduction This thesis introduces and develops the concept that digital computers are invocational media. The invocational assemblage, with its inputs, outputs, processor and memory, is a distinctive meta-media form characterised by the capacity to call up numbers, texts, images, sounds and movements. The concept of invocation connects the technical features shared by the diverse range of digital computers developed during the second half of the twentieth century with the cultural practices that emerged around them. I will demonstrate that this concept captures the technocultural lineage of ‘digital computers’ better than other approaches. The generic term ‘interactive digital computer’ has outgrown its usefulness. All three words in the phrase are problematic. Each of the terms has a forgotten history, leaving not only redundant, but confusing meanings. First, virtually all computers built after the mid 1970s are ‘interactive’. Interactivity is where ‘the user is connected directly to a central computer in such a way that transactions are performed directly in response to the commands made by the user’ (Chandor 1987: 248–249). This distinction was meaningful when it distinguished interactive systems from batch processors. In non-interactive systems users had to prepare their jobs away from the computer using, for example, punch cards. The personal computer was never anything but interactive, so the inherited term went on to take on a number of more or less useful meanings (Schneiderman 1986, Carroll 1991, Monk 1984). Interactivity is a hidden anthropomorphism, suggesting that the machine is an ‘other’ with whom the user engages. It also suggests a turn-taking interaction typical of command line interactions. The range of ways users engage with computers is not usefully captured by the term ‘interaction’. 1 Invocational media The term ‘digital’ is based on an even older distinction. In the 1930s and 40s it distinguished between two quite different approaches to building a computing machine: analogue and digital. Analogue computers, such as the mechanical Differential Analyser built at MIT, had some early success. Analogue computers used continuous voltage or mechanical variations to perform calculations. At an early stage these were faster and cheaper than digital computers. In the longer term analogue computers proved more expensive and less versatile, so the basis of virtually all computers since the 1950s was digital (Kempf 2000, Ceruzzi 1983). When no longer in opposition to ‘analogue computers’, the term ‘digital computer’ becomes not only redundant but confusing. Computer discourse has been responsible for a lot of mystification about the distinction between analogue and digital systems of representation. Digitality is not exclusive to computers. It refers to systems of communication based on discrete values and pre-defined codes, rather than on continuous variations along continua. Digital codes include written language and mathematics — which existed long before computers. Digital elements (characters, phonemes) are always intermixed with analogue elements (gestures, facial expressions), and analogue variations are often described digitally (weight is expressed in kilograms or pounds). Hence, only part of the so-called digital computer operates with digital logic — the central processing unit (CPU) and memory devices. These components automatically reify principles and procedures developed in the Western tradition of mathematics and logic, all of which use discrete values. Even here, the computer’s operations are not actually digital, but rather digital readings of analogue variations of high and low voltages. What makes a digital computer different from a mathematician with a piece of paper is that its operations are automatic, very fast, and not directly observable. Sequential variations in 2 1. Computers and the Humanities voltage run through specialised components to perform logical and arithmetical transformations and hold these as electrical
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Paradise Lost , Book III, Line 18
    _Paradise Lost_, book III, line 18 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ++++++++++Hacker's Encyclopedia++++++++ ===========by Logik Bomb (FOA)======== <http://www.xmission.com/~ryder/hack.html> ---------------(1997- Revised Second Edition)-------- ##################V2.5################## %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% "[W]atch where you go once you have entered here, and to whom you turn! Do not be misled by that wide and easy passage!" And my Guide [said] to him: "That is not your concern; it is his fate to enter every door. This has been willed where what is willed must be, and is not yours to question. Say no more." -Dante Alighieri _The Inferno_, 1321 Translated by John Ciardi Acknowledgments ---------------------------- Dedicated to all those who disseminate information, forbidden or otherwise. Also, I should note that a few of these entries are taken from "A Complete List of Hacker Slang and Other Things," Version 1C, by Casual, Bloodwing and Crusader; this doc started out as an unofficial update. However, I've updated, altered, expanded, re-written and otherwise torn apart the original document, so I'd be surprised if you could find any vestiges of the original file left. I think the list is very informative; it came out in 1990, though, which makes it somewhat outdated. I also got a lot of information from the works listed in my bibliography, (it's at the end, after all the quotes) as well as many miscellaneous back issues of such e-zines as _Cheap Truth _, _40Hex_, the _LOD/H Technical Journals_ and _Phrack Magazine_; and print magazines such as _Internet Underground_, _Macworld_, _Mondo 2000_, _Newsweek_, _2600: The Hacker Quarterly_, _U.S. News & World Report_, _Time_, and _Wired_; in addition to various people I've consulted.
    [Show full text]
  • Vermont Law Review [Vol
    TOWARD A MORE EQUITABLE PROSECUTION OF CYBERCRIME: CONCERNING HACKERS, CRIMINALS, AND THE NATIONAL SECURITY INTRODUCTION When I was fifteen and in tenth grade, on the first Friday of every month, I used to tell my mother I was engaged in some sort of after-school activity and would not be home until late that evening. Instead of engaging in that activity, I took the school bus as close as possible to the train station. I would then take the 3:06 p.m. train from Ronkonkoma, New York—the last stop on Long Island—to Pennsylvania Station, New York City. From Penn Station, I took the “F” Train uptown to 53rd and Lexington. From Lexington, I walked over to 3rd Avenue to what was then called the Citicorp building.1 I would glide down the escalators of the Citicorp building to where fast-food chains surrounded the lobby and a large bank of payphones stood. In the lobby of the Citicorp building, on 53rd and 3rd, next to the payphones, the first Friday of every month, at five o’clock, was where the New York 2600 Meetings took place. This is where the hackers met. It was always a motley group. There were many teens wearing baggy black clothes, toting bags with arcane electronic equipment, radio frequency scanners, magnetic strip readers and writers, laptops, and mysteriously misappropriated telephone-company equipment. There was an older contingency who spoke of the days of yore when the telephone system operated on analog switches and blueboxing was commonplace.2 There were gentlemen in suits selling digital crystals, at an inflated price, that would allow one to construct a redbox.3 Like clockwork, a phone phreak4 from Australia, who used the alias “Phoney,” would call the Citicorp lobby’s payphones just to chat with the New York hackers, and would 1.
    [Show full text]
  • How Hackers Think: a Mixed Method Study of Mental Models and Cognitive Patterns of High-Tech Wizards
    HOW HACKERS THINK: A MIXED METHOD STUDY OF MENTAL MODELS AND COGNITIVE PATTERNS OF HIGH-TECH WIZARDS by TIMOTHY C. SUMMERS Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation Committee: Kalle Lyytinen, Ph.D., Case Western Reserve University (chair) Mark Turner, Ph.D., Case Western Reserve University Mikko Siponen, Ph.D., University of Jyväskylä James Gaskin, Ph.D., Brigham Young University Weatherhead School of Management Designing Sustainable Systems CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVESITY May, 2015 CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES We hereby approve the thesis/dissertation of Timothy C. Summers candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy degree*. (signed) Kalle Lyytinen (chair of the committee) Mark Turner Mikko Siponen James Gaskin (date) February 17, 2015 *We also certify that written approval has been obtained for any proprietary material contained therein. © Copyright by Timothy C. Summers, 2014 All Rights Reserved Dedication I am honored to dedicate this thesis to my parents, Dr. Gloria D. Frelix and Dr. Timothy Summers, who introduced me to excellence by example and practice. I am especially thankful to my mother for all of her relentless support. Thanks Mom. DISCLAIMER The views expressed in this dissertation are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense, the United States Government, or Booz Allen Hamilton. Table of Contents List of Tables ....................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • The Hacker Crackdown, Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier
    The Hacker Crackdown, law and disorder on the electronic frontier Sterling, Bruce, 1954- Release date: 1994-01-01 Source: Bebook **This is a COPYRIGHTED Project Gutnberg Etext, Details Below** Please take a look at the important information in this header. We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. **Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** **Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** *These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and further information is included below. We need your donations. Hacker Crackdown, by Bruce Sterling January, 1994 [Etext #101] *The Project Gutenberg Etext of Hacker Crackdown by Sterling* ******This file should be named hack11.txt or hack11.zip***** Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, hack12.txt VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, hack11a.txt The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment and editing by those who wish to do so. To be sure you have an up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes in the first week of the next month. Since our ftp program has a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a new copy has at least one byte more or less.
    [Show full text]
  • Book Note the Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier
    Volume 6, Spring Issue, 1993 BOOK NOTE THE HACKER CRACKDOWN: LAW AND DISORDER ON THE ELECTRONIC FRONTIER By Bruce Sterling. New York, New York: Bantam Books. 1992. Pp. 328. $23.00 (hard). In 1989 and 1990, federal and state agents across the United States cracked down on the nation's computer undergrotmd. The most ambitious offensive, Operation Sundevil, resulted in the seizure of forty-two computer systems and 23,000 floppy disks in cities from New York to Los Angeles (pp. 156-59). The Chicago Computer Fraud and Abuse Task Force conducted ten hacker raids in 1989 and 1990. These actions brought to the national spotlight numerous concerns about privacy and freedom in the electronic arena. In The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier, Bruce Sterling colorfully describes the personalities and institutions behind the "great hacker dragnet of 1990" (p. 24). He approaches this subject by focusing on the four principal factions that participated in the crackdown: hackers, telecommunications companies ("telcos" like AT&T, MCI and Sprint), law enforcement officials, and civil libertarians (who rushed to the scene in the crackdown's wake). Relying on personal interviews and extensive field research, Sterling presents the problems and concerns faced by each group. He concludes with a glowing description of the First Confercnce on Computers, Freedom and Privacy, at which representatives from these mutually suspicious factions gathered and, in true League of Nations fashion, celebrated a newfound understanding. Sterling's perspective as a science fiction writer gives him unique insight into the psyche of the computer hacker.l Unlike other popular accounts, Sterling's does not depict hackers as twisted geniuses bent on crashing telephone systems and stealing missile-launch sequences.
    [Show full text]
  • Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: the Story of Anonymous
    hacker, hoaxer, whistleblower, spy hacker, hoaxer, whistleblower, spy the many faces of anonymous Gabriella Coleman London • New York First published by Verso 2014 © Gabriella Coleman 2014 The partial or total reproduction of this publication, in electronic form or otherwise, is consented to for noncommercial purposes, provided that the original copyright notice and this notice are included and the publisher and the source are clearly acknowledged. Any reproduction or use of all or a portion of this publication in exchange for financial consideration of any kind is prohibited without permission in writing from the publisher. The moral rights of the author have been asserted 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Verso UK: 6 Meard Street, London W1F 0EG US: 20 Jay Street, Suite 1010, Brooklyn, NY 11201 www.versobooks.com Verso is the imprint of New Left Books ISBN-13: 978-1-78168-583-9 eISBN-13: 978-1-78168-584-6 (US) eISBN-13: 978-1-78168-689-8 (UK) British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the library of congress Typeset in Sabon by MJ & N Gavan, Truro, Cornwall Printed in the US by Maple Press Printed and bound in the UK by CPI Group Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY I dedicate this book to the legions behind Anonymous— those who have donned the mask in the past, those who still dare to take a stand today, and those who will surely rise again in the future.
    [Show full text]
  • The Hacker Crackdown
    LITERARY FREEWARE — Not for Commercial Use by Bruce Sterling <[email protected]> Sideways PDF version 0.1 by E-Scribe <[email protected]> C O N T E N T S Preface to the Electronic Release of The Hacker Crackdown Chronology of the Hacker Crackdown Introduction Part 1: CRASHING THE SYSTEM A Brief History of Telephony / Bell's Golden Vaporware / Universal Service / Wild Boys and Wire Women / The Electronic Communities / The Ungentle Giant / The Breakup / In Defense of the System / The Crash Post- Mortem / Landslides in Cyberspace Part 2: THE DIGITAL UNDERGROUND Steal This Phone / Phreaking and Hacking / The View From Under the Floorboards / Boards: Core of the Underground / Phile Phun / The Rake's Progress / Strongholds of the Elite / Sting Boards / Hot Potatoes / War on the Legion / Terminus / Phile 9-1-1 / War Games / Real Cyberpunk Part 3: LAW AND ORDER Crooked Boards / The World's Biggest Hacker Bust / Teach Them a Lesson / The U.S. Secret Service / The Secret Service Battles the Boodlers / A Walk Downtown / FCIC: The Cutting-Edge Mess / Cyberspace Rangers / FLETC: Training the Hacker-Trackers Part 4: THE CIVIL LIBERTARIANS NuPrometheus + FBI = Grateful Dead / Whole Earth + Computer Revolution = WELL / Phiber Runs Underground and Acid Spikes the Well / The Trial of Knight Lightning / Shadowhawk Plummets to Earth / Kyrie in the Confessional / $79,499 / A Scholar Investigates / Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Electronic Afterwordto *The Hacker Crackdown,* New Years' Day 1994 BRUCE STERLING — THE HACKER CRACKDOWN NOT FOR COMMERCIAL USE 2 Preface to the Electronic Release of The Hacker Crackdown January 1, 1994 — Austin, Texas Hi, I'm Bruce Sterling, the author of this electronic book.
    [Show full text]
  • A Sociology of Hackers
    A sociology of hackers Tim Jordan and Paul Taylor Abstract Illicit computer intruders, or hackers, are often thought of as pathologi- cal individuals rather than as members of a community. However, hack- ers exist within social groups that provide expertise, support, training, journals and conferences. This article outlines this community to estab- lish the nature of hacking within ‘information societies’. To delineate a ‘sociology of hackers’, an introduction is provided to the nature of com- puter-mediated communication and the act of computer intrusion, the hack. Following this the hacking community is explored in three sections. First, a profile of the number of hackers and hacks is provided by explor- ing available demographics. Second, an outline of its culture is provided through a discussion of six different aspects of the hacking community. The six aspects are technology, secrecy, anonymity, membership fluidity, male dominance and motivations. Third, an exploration of the commu- nity’s construction of a boundary, albeit fluid, between itself and its other, the computer security industry, is provided. This boundary is con- structed through metaphors whose central role is to establish the ethical nature of hacking. Finally, a conclusion that rejects any pathologisation of hackers is offered. Introduction1 The growth of a world-wide computer network and its increasing use both for the construction of online communities and for the reconstruction of existing societies means that unauthorised com- puter intrusion, or hacking, has wide significance. The 1996 report of a computer raid on Citibank that netted around $10 million indicates the potential seriousness of computer intrusion. Other, perhaps more whimsical, examples are the attacks on the CIA © The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 1998.
    [Show full text]
  • A Summary of Hacking Organizations, Conferences, Publications, and E
    A Summary of Hacking Organizations, Conferences, Publications, and E... http://www.cse.wustl.edu/~jain/cse571-07/ftp/hacking_orgs/ A Summary of Hacking Organizations, Conferences, Publications, and Effects on Society Alisha Cecil [[email protected]] Abstract Since the early 1970's, hackers have been prevalent throughout the computing world. Two main categories of Hackers have evolved: the Open Source and Free Software group and the Security Hackers group. This paper details some of the more notable groups and individuals of each 'category' of hackers, the effects of hacking on society, as well as conferences and publications that they are responsible for that have contributed to the modern hacking world. Table of Contents 1.0 Introduction 2.0 Hacking Sytles 3.0 Hacker Etiquette & Ethics 4.0 Hacking Groups & Individuals 4.1 Open Source & Free Software Hackers 4.2 Security Hackers 4.2.1 Chaos Computer Club (CCC) 4.2.2 Legion of Doom (LoD) 4.2.3 The Mentor 4.2.4 cDc Communications 4.2.5 Shadow Crew 5.0 Hacker Conferences 5.1 Chaos Communication Congress 5.2 SummerCon 5.3 HoHoCon (or Xmas Con) 5.4 DEF CON 5.5 Hackers on Planet Earth (H.O.P.E.) 5.6 Black Hat Briefiengs 6.0 Hacker Publications 6.1 2600: Hacker Quarterly 6.2 Phrack 7.0 Hackers Effects on Society 8.0 Summary List of Acronyms References 1.0 Introduction Since the early 1970's, hackers have been prevalent throughout the computing world. They come in all shapes, 1 of 16 12/19/2007 5:12 PM A Summary of Hacking Organizations, Conferences, Publications, and E..
    [Show full text]
  • A HACKER PRIMER Matt Devost
    A HACKER PRIMER Matt Devost April 5, 1997 PREFACE The President’s Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection (PCCIP) was formed to bring together the combined forces of government and industry to develop a strategy for protecting US critical infrastructures and assuring their continued operation. In order to fulfill the challenge of their mission, the PCCIP determined a need to categorize the range of potential threats including aggressor states, terrorists, criminals, insiders, computer hackers and natural disasters. The purpose of this document is to provide information on one of the infrastructure threat categories: computer hackers. While much has been written about the hacker community, this document goes further to provide actual Internet reference points for hacker tools and hacker groups. It also provides a descriptive listing of hacker communication mechanisms and discussion of potential hacker targets, motivations and trends. The document is organized as follows: An introduction to the document is followed by an examination of hacker organizational and social considerations to include a detailed listing of hacker communication mechanisms and listings of high profile hacker groups. Subsequent sections identify hacker targets and off-line techniques hackers use to supplement their intrusion capabilities, provide a descriptive listing of common hacker tools with Internet reference points, and furnish a listing of hacker references to include WWW sites, related books, magazines and movies. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Section Page
    [Show full text]
  • Department of Communication Arts and Sciences DEMOCRACY and the HACKER MOVEMENT
    The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School Department of Communication Arts and Sciences DEMOCRACY AND THE HACKER MOVEMENT: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES AND POLITICAL ACTION A Thesis in Communication Arts and Sciences by Brett Lance Lunceford © 2006 Brett Lance Lunceford Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2006 ii The thesis of Brett Lance Lunceford was reviewed and approved* by the following: Thomas W. Benson Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Rhetoric Thesis Advisor Chair of Committee J. Michael Hogan Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences Stephen H. Browne Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences Jorge Reina Schement Distinguished Professor of Communications James P. Dillard Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences Head of the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School iii ABSTRACT In order to understand how technology may influence democratic practice, it is necessary to understand the values of those who are creating and shaping technology because those who create technology instill within those technologies particular values. Hackers comprise one group that has a significant role in the creation and shaping of technology. As the United States moves closer toward becoming an information society, the hacker is a figure that embodies both peril and promise. If technology is to revolutionize democratic practice, citizens must begin to use technology in revolutionary ways. Hackers, through acts of “hacktivism” (politically motivated hacking), are using technology in inventive ways for political ends. Living in an information society places constraints upon democratic practice. Because hackers are actively creating and shaping these constraints, they are likely to successfully negotiate these constraints.
    [Show full text]
  • From Internet Farming to Weapons of the Geek
    From Internet Farming to Weapons of the Geek The political education of apolitical technical people is extraordinary Julian Assange, 2014 Gabriella Coleman McGill University Draft Paper for Current Anthropology special issue on New Media, New Publics. Please don©t circulate, share, etc. Citations are incomplete. In January 2015, after delivering a talk about the protest ensemble Anonymous at the University of Toronto, I went out to lunch with PWÐa forty-something Dutch hacker now living in Canada, who I first met in 2002 while conducting a stint of research in Amsterdam. Given his expertise in cryptography and security, the conversation inexorably drifted to the subject of Edward SnowdenÐa former government contractor who exposed the NSA©s secret surveillance programs. PW, long involved in the battle for privacy, benefited from the following situation: many hackers, experienced Snowden©s act of whistle-blowing as a historic and urgent wake-up call. Scores of technologists were spurred to pursue a privacy agenda through the communal development of encryption tools. Over lunch I asked him what he thought about the contemporary state of hacker politics. PW, who has been intensely involved in the hacker scene for his whole adult life, did not skip a beat in tendering the following analysis: the political impacts of hackers would emerge diffusely, over an extended period of time, products of the types of technologies, like the internet itself, they work to build. To punctuate this point, he described hackers as ªinternet farmers.º Just as the rise of agriculturalists ushered in massive changes by altering material relations to food supplies, so too would hackers and their technologists allies alter the course of human history by virtue of their technological artifacts.
    [Show full text]