Building Hacker Collective Identity One Text Phile at a Time: Reading Phrack
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Media History Monographs 11:2 (2008-2009) ISSN 1940-8862 Building Hacker Collective Identity One Text Phile at a Time: Reading Phrack Brett Lunceford University of South Alabama Research concerning computer hackers generally focuses on how to stop them; far less attention is given to the texts they create. Phrack, an online hacker journal that has run almost continuously since 1985, is an important touchstone in hacker literature, widely read by both hackers and telephone and network security professionals. But beyond its instantiation as a compendium of illicit technical knowledge, Phrack was, above all, a rhetorical publication. The files in each issue of Phrack created a shared rhetorical vision concerning the place of the hacker underground within society and in relation to law enforcement officials, as well as what it means to be a hacker. This essay examines two important events in the evolution of the hacker movement through the lens of Phrack—Operation Sundevil and the arrest of Kevin Mitnick. How these events were framed in Phrack both shaped and reflected emerging shifts in hacker collective identity. ©2009 Brett Lunceford Media History Monographs 11:2 Lunceford: Reading Phrack Building Hacker Collective Identity One Text Phile at a Time: Reading Phrack Stephen Segaller describes the formation of Managers that Helps Protect Corporate Data the Internet as “one of the twentieth century’s from Assaults by the Hackers” and “The most productive accidents,” explaining that the World of Data Confronts the Joy of Hacking,” “seeds of the Internet were planted by the U.S. which begins, “The recent electronic government in the wake of nationwide concern escapades of a group of Milwaukee youths over the Soviet launch of Sputnik.”44 Hackers have brought national attention to the growing were an integral part of the construction of this problem of computer security,”47 demonstrate network. Scholars have traced the origins of the early concerns over hackers in the media. the computer hacker to the computer Eric Raymond explains that 1984 marked the programmers of the 1950s and 1960s who, for time “that serious cracking episodes were first the most part, worked in universities on covered in the mainstream press—and projects funded almost exclusively by the journalists began to misapply the term ‘hacker’ government.45 These programmers were to refer to computer vandals.”48 Socially instrumental in the formation of ARPANet, constructed views of hackers have created as a communication system that could considerable weight and, in large measure, be used in the event of a nuclear attack. these views have been influenced by popular Randall points out that while ARPANet was a press and network security journals that military venture, there are several describe hackers as a threat. interpretations of the origins of ARPANet, A commonly held myth concerning hackers including a decidedly non-military version that is that they break into computer systems explains ARPANet as a way to develop a because they want to intrude on other network that people wanted anyway. After all, networks or steal information such as credit he explains, it was the height of the Cold War card numbers or passwords. These hackers do and military spending was at an all time high exist, and, unfortunately, this is the kind of and by framing a project as useful for the hacking that has received the most attention military, one could more easily gain funding.46 from law enforcement, the media, and the Hackers were useful to government and government. But other motivations may also industry for the same reasons that they are now lead to hacking. Some hackers are interested in perceived as a threat—hackers are inquisitive, computer security. Others may simply want to driven by internal rather than external know that they can access a particular motivations, and refuse to accept boundaries network—in other words, it is not the actual concerning what can and can not be done. utility of accessing a network, but the potential Although public fear of hackers, with of realizing that utility if necessary. There are increasing concern over cyberterrorism and lesser acknowledged professional interests as identity theft, seems to be a fairly recent trend, well; many hackers are also computer industry this sentiment began in the early 1980’s. professionals. In other words, the people who Headlines such as “Raising Security build word processing programs, Internet Consciousness; A Monthly Guide for browsers, and computer systems may be the Brett Lunceford is Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of South Alabama where he serves as the head of the Interpersonal / Rhetoric track. This manuscript is partially derived from his d octoral dissertation, “Democracy and the Hacker Mo1v ement: Information Technologies and Political A ction,” directed by Thomas W. Benson at the Pennsylvania State University. Media History Monographs 11:2 Lunceford: Reading Phr2a ck same people who are interested in breaking definition are important—especially when into the code of these programs and systems to such definitions carry the possibility of a examine how they can be made more efficient prison sentence. As hackers have become and more secure. rhetorically constructed as terrorists in As a group, hackers defy a clear, government and media discourses, hackers overarching definition because they exist in have worked to provide alternate definitions of the liminal space between the fears and the hackers and hacking. dreams of how technology is shaping society. Despite the intricacies and contradictions of Inquisitiveness and a desire to push the hacker identity, some core tenets can be boundaries of what something can do comprise distilled through their writings. Phrack, an the essence of hacking. For example, Levy online hacker journal, is one of several hacker describes the MIT Tech Model Railroad Club texts that provide hackers with a way of seeing as an early hacker group because they themselves and their place in the world by modified and incorporated discarded telephone reporting on and defining the exigencies that equipment into their existing model railroad spurred hackers into creating a shared identity. systems.49 This is an excellent example of This essay examines how Phrack framed two hacking that does not conform to the such exigencies, Operation Sundevil and the vernacular usage of the term. Jon Erickson arrest of Kevin Mitnick, which helped shape states, “There are some who will still argue hacker collective identity. Other scholars have that there is a distinct line between hackers and traced the history of more mainstream crackers, but I believe that anyone who has the hackers52; this study seeks to provide an hacker spirit is a hacker, despite what laws he alternate history of the more subversive or she may break.”50 Yet, like hackers elements of the hacker movement by closely themselves, the “hacker spirit” is also difficult examining these two defining moments as to define. recorded in the pages of Phrack. Perhaps another difficulty in solidifying a clear definition of hackers stems from the The Politicization of Hackers competing definitions that come from hackers Before delving into Phrack, we must first themselves, the mass media, government and examine the events that led to its creation. law enforcement agencies, and legislation. Some scholars argue that the politicization of Even within the hacker community, definitions the hacker is a relatively new phenomenon. of what it means to be a hacker are contested. Douglas Thomas states that hackers had more The various definitions may have different limited political agendas in the 1970s and criteria for inclusion and exclusion but the 1980s and that most attacks were then directed imposition of a definition may carry serious at the phone company but that “more recently, consequences. Yar points out that “the in the wake of the AT&T break up, with the contested nature of the terms [hacking and rise of the Internet, and with the increasing hackers] . shows how hacking, as a form of globalization of technology, hackers have criminal activity, is actively constructed by begun to engage in more concerted political governments, law enforcement, the computer action, at both local and political levels.”53 security industry, businesses, and media; and Thomas identifies Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc) how the equation of such activities with as “the first hacker group dedicated to a kind ‘crime’ and ‘criminality’ is both embraced and of political action based on principles of civil challenged by those who engage in them.”51 A disobedience and visibility, and . the first particular group’s self-definition is not the group to connect hacker identity with the only possible definition, and questions of notion of political action.”54 2 Media History Monographs 11:2 Lunceford: Reading Phr3a ck There are some problems with this account transboundarily for the freedom of information of hacker politicization. Hackers have long and communication without any censorship - understood the power that comes with by any government or company, and which understanding technology. Gareth Branwyn studies the impacts of technology for the put it this way: “One of the first ‘a-ha’s’ I had society and the individual.”59 Although this about computer terrorism in the late ‘80s was statement was written in 2003, Steven Furnell that the possibilities for insurrection and for a explains that “the exploits of [CCC] over the parity of power not based on brute force had years have had a considerably political slant,” changed radically with the advent of computer and that members were linked to an espionage networks and our society’s almost complete case in the late 1980’s.60 reliance on them. There was now at least the Shortly after the Chaos Computer Club possibility that groups or individual hackers began, 2600, named after the frequency that could seriously compromise the U.S.