HACKING HACKERS McMASTER UNIVERSITY LIBRARY HACKING HACKERS: ETHNOGRAPHIC INSIGHTS INTO THE HACKER SUBCULTURE­ DEFINITION, IDEOLOGY AND ARGOT By STEVEN WILLIAM KLEINKNECHT, B.A. A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Pmiial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts McMaster University © Copyright by Steven William Kleinknecht, July 2003 MASTER OF ARTS (2003) McMaster University (Sociology) Hamilton, Ontario TITLE: Hacking Hackers: Etlmographic Insights into the Hacker Subculture­ Definition, Ideology and Argot AUTHOR: Steven W. Kleinknecht, B.A (University of Waterloo) SUPERVISOR: Professor William Shaffir NUMBER OF PAGES: vii, 191 ii ABSTRACT While media presentation of hackers and other members of the "computer underground" tend to be pejorative, such representations are often based solely on the viewpoints of "outsiders." As such, society is presented with an image of the hacker subculture that fails to examine the meanings hackers attribute to their activities. Employing symbolic interactionist theory and taking an ethnographic approach to understand the experiences and activities of hackers, this thesis has sought to examine and analyse various characteristics of the hacker subculture. Information pertaining to how hackers define themselves and their activities, the principles underlying the hacker ideology and the distinctive elements of the hacker language constituted the main focus of this thesis. Fifteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with self-defined hackers and fieldwork was undertaken to collect data on and off the Internet during hacker meetings and interactions, and from hacker news groups, web sites, and subcultural pUblications. Findings from this thesis reveal that the hacker subculture is quite complex and is socially constmcted through small-group interactions in various local subcultures that, while dissimilar in some respects, identify with characteristics of the transnational hacker subculture. Along with the application of role labels, adopting the hacker ideology and argot serve as identifying traits, which are used to situate different subcategories of hackers within the subculture in terms oftheir status, skill and the perceived ethics of their activities. Condemning "inaccurate" media portrayals of their subculture, imputing labels to others within the subculture to differentiate between "good" and "bad" hackers, invoking the hacker ideology as a vocabulary of motive, and linking their perspective to outsiders viewed favourably by the public, all serve as ways ofmanaging the stigma attached to hackers' deviant public identity. A number of other theoretical and substantive findings, as well as recol1.}mendations for future research, are presented. 111 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank: My Advisor, Dr. William Shaffir for his constant advice and guidance. My Committee Members, Dr. Dorothy Pawluch and Dr. Charlene Miall for their time, comments and encouragement. The participants, without whom this research project would not be possible. Thank you for letting me be a part of your community, for sharing your stories, explanations and insights. Thank you for your openness. Most of all, thank you for all the time YOli spent meeting and talking with me about your passion, hacking. Amanda MacGillivary for being so understanding and for supporting me through everything from my initial thoughts to the final submission. Thank you for sparking my creativity and motivating me. Robert, Laurie and Ryan Kleinknecht, for teaching me to believe that anything is possible. Dr. Dan Antonowicz and Dr. Roberta Russell for sharing their scholarly wisdom and experiences. This work is dedicated to: Grandma Stevens and Aunt La for their love and insp irati on. iv T ABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 1 GUIDING QUESTIONS .......................................................................................................... 2 LITERATURE REVIEW: A HISTORICAL LOOK AT THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE HACKER .................................................................................... 3 DEFINING THE COMPUTER HACKER: A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW ................... .4 THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF HACKERS AS DEVIANTS ................................ 7 t~~ TOWARDS A STATEMENT ON THE HACKER SUBCULTURE .................................... 14 CHAPTER TWO: THEORY ........................................................................................................ 18 SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM ......................................................................................... 18 INTERACTIONISM ONLINE ........................................................................................ 22 CONCEPTUALIZING SUBCULTURE FROM AN INTERACTIONIST PERSPECTIVE .......................... , ................................ '" .................................................. 24 CULTURE FORMATION: THE SUBCULTURAL MOSAIC ............................... 25 THE PROCESSUAL NATURE OF SUBCULTURE .............................................. 28 SUBCULTURAL VARIANTS ................................................................................ 31 Cff~_RACTER1STICS OF SUBCULTURE ............................................................. 32 CHAPTER THREE: METHOD .................................................................................................... 35 ETHNOGRAPHIC INQUIRY ............................................................................................... 35 INTERACTIONISM AND ETHNOGRAPHY ............................................................... 36 DEALING WITH PRECONCEPTIONS ........................................................................ 37 LOCATING INFORMANTS AND DECIDING UPON THE RESEARCH SETTING ............................................................................... , .......... 41 NEGOTIATING PRESENCE AND SELF-PRESENTATION IN THE FIELD ........... .47 COLLECTING DATA ONLINE .................................................................................... 59 DISCUSSION .................................................................................................................. 62 CHAPTER FOUR: TOWARDS A DEFINITION OF HACKER: HACKER AS A CONTESTED TERM ........................................................................................ 65 - ;~. HACKERS VS. THE MEDIA: CHALLENGING MEDIA DEFINITIONS OF "HACKER" ............................................................................................ 68 ~ CONTESTED INSIDER DEFINITIONS OF "HACKER" ................................................... 73 HACKERS AND CRACKERS ....................................................................................... 76 HATS: WHITE, BLACK AND GREy ........................................................................... 81 v DISCUSSION ................................................... '" ................................................................... 86 CHAPTER FNE: THE HACKER IDEOLOGY .......................................................................... 91. CONCEPTUALIZING IDEOLOGY ..................................................................................... 91 THE HACKER SPIRIT ................................................................................................... 93 THE HACKER SPIRIT: THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE ................................ 95 PRINCIPLE #1: HIGHER UNDERSTANDING REQUIRES AN UNORTHODOX APPROACH ......................................................................... 97 PRINCIPLE #2: HACKING INVOLVES HARD WORK ................................ 98 PRINCIPLE #3: HACKING REQUIRES A "LEARN FOR YOURSELF" APPROACH - LEARN BY DOING ........................................ 100 PRINCIPLE #4: SHARE YOUR KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION WITH OTHERS .................................................................. 102 PRINCIPLE #5: YOU'RE EVALUATED BASED ON WHAT YOU KNOW AND YOUR DESIRE TO LEARN .................................................... 106 PRINCIPLE #6: MISTRUST AUTHORITY ................................................... 108 PRINCIPLE #7: ALL INFORMATION SHOULD BE FREE ........................ 114 DISCUSSION ....................................................................................................................... 118 CHAPTER SIX: HACKER ARGOT .......................................................................................... 126 CONCEPTUALIZING ARGOT .......................................................................................... 126 THE HACKER LANGUAGE: TECHSPEAK AND JARGON .......................................... 130 TECHSPEAK ..................................................................................... , .......................... 134 JARGON ........................................................................................................................ 138 NETSPEAK AND THE CONVENTIONS OF ONLINE TALK ........................... 139 L3375P34K ............................................................................................................. 147 ROLE LABELS ...................................................................................................... 155 DISCUSSION ....................................................................................................................... 158 CHAPTER SEVEN: CONCLUSION ......................................................................................... 163 SUMMARy .........................................................................................................................