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+<div style="width:38em; margin:auto; text-align:justify; font-family:sans;"><h1 style="text-align: center">Riemens, Some Thoughts on the Idea of "Hacker Culture"</h1> 
+     <p align="center"><b>SOME 
+       THOUGHTS ON THE IDEA OF "HACKER CULTURE"<br>
+       </b><br>
+       <b>Patrice 
+       Riemens<br>
+       <br>
+       </b></p>
+     <p><i>"The 
+       Theory of 'Free Software' as the seed of a post-capitalist society only 
+       makes sense where it is understood as the exposure of those very contradictions 
+       of the development of productive forces which are relevant to the process 
+       of emancipation. It does not, however, make sense as a discovery of a 
+       format for their deployment out of which would automatically spring forth 
+       a better society. And it does not make sense either as the first stage 
+       of a process that one ought to follow as if it were a blueprint." 
+       ("Eight Theses on Liberation," Oekonux 
+       mailing list)</i></p>
+     <p>As 
+       the new information and communication technologies (ICT) entered our lives 
+       and became increasingly important in our daily activities, so did all 
+       kinds of knowledge, working habits and ways of thinking that were previously 
+       the exclusive domain of "geeks" and computer experts. Even though 
+       the vast majority of ICT users are passive consumers, a modicum of technological 
+       know-how is more and more prevalent among non-professionals, and these 
+       days, artists, intellectuals, and political activists have become fairly 
+       visible as informed and even innovative actors in what has become known 
+       as the public domain in cyberspace.</p>
+     <p>"Hackers," 
+       also often, but inexactly referred to as "computer pirates" 
+       or other derogatory term, constitute without doubt the first social movement 
+       that was intrinsic to the electronic technology that spawned our networked 
+       society. Hackers, both through their savyness and their actions, have 
+       hit the imagination and have been in the news right from the onset of 
+       the "information age," being either hyped up as bearers of an 
+       independent and autonomous technological mastery, or demonized as potential 
+       "cyber-terrorists" in the process. More recently they have been 
+       hailed in certain "alternative" intellectual and cultural circles 
+       as a countervailing power of sorts against the increasingly oppressive 
+       onslaught of both monopolistic ICT corporations and regulation-obsessed 
+       governments and their experts. Transformed into role-models as effective 
+       resistance fighters against "the system," their garb has been 
+       assumed with various degrees of (de)merit by a plethora of cultural and 
+       political activists associated, closely or loosely, with the "counter-globalization 
+       movement."</p>
+     <p>Yet, 
+       whereas hackers (if we take a broad definition of the term) have been 
+       pioneering the opening up of electronic channels of communication in the 
+       South, in the North, they initially were held in suspicion by those same 
+       circles. Political militants there hesitated for a long time before embarking 
+       into computers and the new media, which they tended to view as "capitalist" 
+       and hence "politically incorrect." By the mid-nineties, however, 
+       "on-line activism" made rapid progress worldwide as more and 
+       more groups adopted the new technologies as tools of action and information 
+       exchange. The dwindling costs of equipment and communication, the (relative) 
+       ease of use, the reliability and security, and the many options that were 
+       offered by ICT were a boon to activists of all possible denominations. 
+       All this was also a very bad surprise to the people at the helm of corporate 
+       and political power, as they saw a swift, substantial, and many-pronged 
+       breakdown of their stranglehold on communication and information taking 
+       place. For some time, it looked like as if a level playing field between 
+       hitherto dominators and dominated had come within sight.</p>
+     <p>The 
+       Net, as a result, became not only one of the principal carriers of political 
+       activism, but also one of its major locus and issue. Once they had overcome 
+       their initial shock and surprise, the powers that be were bound to react 
+       forcefully. And they did, beefing up the "protection" of so-called 
+       intellectual property, erecting ever higher walls around expert knowledge 
+       and techniques, and unlashing all-round measures of control and surveillance 
+       on electronic communications. But resistance against this (re)subjugation 
+       of the networks also got organized. Almost by necessity, more and more 
+       activists became conversant with the new technologies, which in the given 
+       circumstances had to be a hands-on learning process. This process saw 
+       activists turning "techies" and "geeks" turning activists 
+       and has resulted in activist circles (political, but also intellectual, 
+       cultural, and artistic) becoming markedly, sometimes completely, ITC-driven. 
+       However, as we will see, this does not ipso facto make them hackers.</p>
+     <p>But 
+       it was equally within the domain of ICT itself that the exponential expansion 
+       of both range and carrying capacity of the Internet, as well of that of 
+       the related technologies, and all this within an increasingly aggressive 
+       commercial environment made experts think again about the consequences 
+       of these developments and even reconsider their methods, opinion, and 
+       for quite a few of them, their position within the hitherto obtaining 
+       order of things. Rejecting the new enclosures that are being imposed on 
+       the dissemination of knowledge and techniques by commercial and/or state 
+       interests, they are exploring new avenues of developing, spreading, and 
+       also rewarding knowledge-building that are not exploitative and monopolistic 
+       or even solely profit-oriented. Hence the flight taken by various software 
+       programs, utilities and application modalities that have become known 
+       under the generic name of Linux, Free Software, Open Source, and General 
+       Public License (for definitions, see www.gnu.org).</p>
+     <p>De 
+       prime abord, these developments suggest that given these technological 
+       settings and socio-economic and political circumstances, convergence was 
+       bound to take place between the actors involved, meaning a merger between 
+       hackers and (political, cultural etc) activists since they were spreading 
+       the same message, and operated in parallel ways under similar threats. 
+       Unfortunately, this interpretation is as unwarranted in its optimism as 
+       it is precipitate in its formulation. Following a line of reasoning aptly 
+       called by the Dutch "the wish is the mother of the idea," such 
+       interpretation is based on the assumed relation, not to say equivalence, 
+       between individuals and groups, and between pursuits, motives, and methods 
+       whose affinities and linkages, even when viewed under the designation 
+       of "new social movements," are far from evident. In fact the 
+       alleged congruence is inherently unstable since it is contingent, and 
+       the supposedly common positions between those two groups are often absent 
+       altogether, and sometimes even contradictory. Whereas it would be excessive 
+       to portray hackers and activists in terms of "never shall the twins 
+       met," the idea, asserted by many a political activist and certain 
+       "public intellectuals," to the effect that their coalescence 
+       is both natural and inevitable is equally outlandish. Not only does it 
+       run roughshod of the sensibilities of "authentic" hackers - 
+       and it does so unfortuitously - it also misrepresents reality hence giving 
+       rise to erroneous hypothesizes and unwarranted expectations.</p>
+     <p>"Hacker 
+       culture," a concept one often encounters these days among networked 
+       activists, purports to represent this playful confluence between tech 
+       wizardry and the moral high ground. Hence, "Open Source" is 
+       fast becoming an omnibus framework and a near-universal tool-kit to tackle 
+       very diverse social issues, such as artistic production, law, epistemology, 
+       education, and a few others, which are but remotely - if at all - related 
+       to the field of software research and development, and the social environments 
+       from which it originates. There is little wrong in itself to this - imitation 
+       being the best of compliments - but for the fact that it tends to obscure 
+       a sticky problem. Between hackers and activists often looms a wide gap 
+       in approach and attitude that is just too critical to be easily papered 
+       away. And it is precisely this fundamental difference that is usually 
+       being hushed up by the evangelists of what I call the "hackers-activists 
+       bhai-bhai" gospel - phrased after the celebrated slogan mouthed by 
+       Chinese and Indian Ministers in 1953: "Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai" 
+       ("India and China are Brothers") … nine years later, both countries 
+       were at war. A good, if a contrario, example of a really occurring non-equivalence 
+       between political activists applying ICT and hackers is provided by that 
+       spurious hybrid known as "hacktivism." "Hacktivism" 
+       was originally coined by the Boston-based hackers "Cult of the Dead 
+       Cow" (www.cultdeadcow.com), whose tag-line read "We put the 
+       hack in activism." It was all about using ICT skills to thwart attacks 
+       on liberties by powerful institutions. The group later had to defend itself 
+       of guilt by association with respect to recent manifestations of "hacktivism" 
+       as Distributed Denial of Services (DoDS) attacks.</p>
+     <p>Behind 
+       the so-called "Hacker Ethic" is the usual, daily activity of 
+       hackers. To put it very simply, without going deeper into its precise 
+       content, the hacker ethic runs strikingly parallel to the formula "l'art 
+       pour l'art." What matters here, is the realization that, unlike activists, 
+       hackers are focused on the pursuit of knowledge and the exercise of curiosity 
+       for its own sake. Therefore, the obligations that derive from the hacker 
+       ethic are perceived by genuine hackers as sovereign and not instrumental, 
+       and always prevail above other aims or interests, whatever these may be 
+       - and if there are any at all. This consequently makes the hackers movement 
+       to be wary of any particular blueprint of society, however alternative, 
+       and even adverse to embrace particular antagonism (some hackers, and not 
+       minor ones, are for instance loath to demonize the Microsoft Corporation). 
+       Hence the spread of political and philosophical opinions harbored by individual 
+       hackers, without any loss of their feeling of identity and belonging to 
+       the "movement" at large or even their particular group, is truly 
+       astonishing, and very unlikely to obtain within any other "new social 
+       movement." In fact, the militant defense of individual liberties 
+       and a penchant for rather unegalitarian economic convictions one encounters 
+       in tandem among a good many hackers has provided for bafflement among 
+       networked political (i.e. left-leaning) activists coming to be better 
+       acquainted with their "natural allies." Yet it is neither fortuitous 
+       nor aberrant that the Californian transmutation of libertarianism enjoys 
+       such widespread support among hackers.</p>
+     <p>The 
+       existence of such "ideological" positions has its reflection 
+       in the daily and usual activities of hackers, which are generally characterized 
+       by an absence of preconceived ideas and positions. Despite the avowed 
+       "end of the great narratives," this is not the case with political 
+       activists, since they do have objectives and aims that precede their actions. 
+       Hackers, on the other hand, are usually happy with the "mere," 
+       but unrestricted, pursuit of knowledge, which reduces their "political 
+       program," if that can be so called, to the freedom of learning and 
+       enquiry, and thus would seem to fall very much short of demands for justice, 
+       equality, emancipation, empowerment, etc that are formulated by political 
+       militants. Yet they seem to be content with it, and there are good arguments 
+       to think that such a program, as limited as it may sound, is essential, 
+       not subsequent, to the achievement of the better society we all aspire 
+       too.</p>
+     <p>This 
+       being said, the points of convergence between the activities of hackers 
+       and those of (political) activists are many, and they increase by the 
+       day. It is becoming more and more evident that both groups face the same 
+       threats, and the same adversaries. As expert technological knowledge - 
+       especially of ITC - that sits outside the formally structured (and shielded) 
+       domains of corporate or political power gets evermore vilified in the 
+       shape of "(cyber)-terrorist" fantasies, paranoia, and finally, 
+       repression, while at the same time this very expertise is increasingly 
+       being mastered and put to use by the enemies of the neo-liberal "One 
+       Idea System," stronger, if circumstantial, links are being welded 
+       between hackers and activists. And these linkages are likely to deepen 
+       and endure in the same measure as the hostility and risks both groups 
+       are likely to encounter augment, it is worthwhile to analyze what unites 
+       as well as what separates them.</p>
+     <p>"Hacktivist" 
+       activities (and I am mostly referring here to the handywork of three groups, 
+       Electronic Disturbance Theater, Electrohippies and RTMark), well advertised 
+       by their authors, but also gleefully reported in the mainstream media, 
+       are illustrative of the gap that parts activists from hackers. The former 
+       usually view "hacktivism," which exploits the innumerable glitches 
+       and weaknesses of ICT systems to destabilize the electronic communication 
+       supports of "enemy organs" (government agencies, big corporations, 
+       international financial institutions, "fascist" groups, etc.), 
+       as a spectacular form of resistance and sabotage. The latter (generally) 
+       take a much dimmer view, considering these activities as ineffective and 
+       futile, and moreover, in most cases, technically inept as well. Such activities 
+       (or antics) endanger the integrity of the network which hackers consider 
+       to be theirs also. "Denial of Service" attacks, irrespective 
+       of aims and targets, amount in their eyes to attacks on the freedom of 
+       expression, which they seem to respect in a much more principled manner 
+       than most political activists.</p>
+     <p>The 
+       truth is, that by abetting "hacktivism," activists implicitly 
+       admit that the net has become a mere corporate carrier, to which they 
+       have only a subordinate, almost clandestine, access, as opposed to be 
+       stakeholders in, and thus sharing responsibility for it. This constitutes 
+       their fundamental divergence with hackers, and it is not easily remediable.</p>
+     <p>Political 
+       activists are also, almost by definition, inclined to seek maximum media 
+       exposure for their ideas and actions. Their activities, therefore, tend 
+       to be public in all the acceptations of the term. The range of issues 
+       that are covered by their ideals, and the variety of means and methods 
+       to achieve the same make they need some form of organization, which is 
+       often complex, because of and not despite the fact they strive for distribution 
+       and horizontality. The result is that even in the most alternative of 
+       circles, an apparatus and leaders appear, whose very informality obscures 
+       rather than prevent hierarchies from arising. This does not suit well 
+       the practice and the ethics of hackers, which Pekka Himanen has described 
+       as "monastic" (www.hackersethic.org). The habitus may be monastic, 
+       the behavior of hackers may however, perhaps be more suitably paralleled 
+       with the "Slashta," the Polish gentry. There too, we see a desire 
+       between equals, that is equals recognized as such beforehand, and hence 
+       also elitist. Political activists on the other hand are much more opportunistic 
+       when it comes to alliances and associations they engage in.</p>
+     <p>So 
+       does the idea of "hacker culture" represent an effective way 
+       to describe and define certain current modes of political activism, especially 
+       when those do have a large ICT component? In many instances where the 
+       term is being used, to the point of having become one of the "buzz-word 
+       du jour," I do not believe so. In many cases, it is the romantic 
+       appeal of what is perceived as hacker power and prowess that leads to 
+       a superficial adoption of the "hacker attitude" moniker by the 
+       cultural and political activists, but not of its underlying methods and 
+       values. That does not mean that there exists an absolute incompatibility 
+       between those two groups, and there are fortunately cases suggesting the 
+       existence of a continuum - such as the Indymedia tech community's pairing 
+       of expertise to a "serve the people" type of operation (tech.indymedia.org, 
+       www.anarchogeek.com). But it should caution against a facile (and trendy) 
+       assumption of an equivalence, and maybe against the confusion-inducing 
+       use of the term "hacker culture" itself.</p>
+     <p><br>
+       <i>This article first 
+       appeared in French in Multitudes, 
+       Vol 2, No 8, March-April 2002, and in (an expanded) English translation 
+       in Cryptome 
+       on June 3, 2002.<br>
+       </i><br>
+     </p>
+     <p align="center"><b>about 
+       Patrice Riemens &gt;&gt;</b></p>
+     </div>
+