" Hackers are collectors of tricks to remove and circumvent the standardization of use inscribed in the object "
Nicolas
Dn its simplest expression, computer hacking can be summed up as an ingenious solution to a technical problem or the discovery of unexpected functionalities. However, defining hacking more precisely is tricky, as the practices relating to it are diverse, and may even seem contradictory.
These range from programming and electronics to computer security and network administration; from the coding of free software to access to cultural goods, under the sometimes claimed banner of “piracy”; from purely “exploratory” intrusion into information systems to the theft of bank identifiers or the creation of “ ransomware ” . a hackcan be technical in nature, but also rely on the ability to impersonate someone else during an interaction in order to gather information ( social engineering ).
Some hackers are builders while others exploit vulnerabilities ( exploits ) for personal gain; some are active on the margins of the information production system and the control mechanisms that accompany it, while others embrace capitalism by project and the race for innovation, of which they sometimes become the leading edge. Hackers come together in highly visible communities and organize themselves into collectives, while others work alone or almost alone and with limited visibility.
This diversity of practices responds to a wide variety of relationships with politics. The forms of commitment can be explicit: this is the case, for example, of so- called "citizen" hacking or civic hacking , which aims to facilitate and increase the transparency of institutions, to encourage democratic participation, or quite simply to provide solutions to problems of general interest (Crabtree 2007; Powell 2016; Schrock 2016; Ermoshina 2018).
This is also true of hacktivismactivist conceived as a tactical intervention or even an “informational war” in the public space “in the name of a cause” – in particular the contestation of the uses of technology deemed to be liberticidal (Wray 1998; Jordan 2001; Jordan & Taylor 2004). Some initiatives that fall under it aim to disclose information considered to be of public interest through the handling of information leaks, on the model of WikiLeaks (Karatzogianni 2018). But this type of action can also be at the initiative of States aiming to destabilize a third country, as shown by the email leaks from campaign teams during the 2016 US presidential elections (DNS email leak, Podesta email leak) and French from 2017 (MacronLeaks), attributed to hackers linked to the Russian state (Greenberg 2019).Hacking is also “ a resource in the deployment of state power ” (Follis & Fish 2020, p. 9). Finally, the political is also lodged in recesses and interstices that are less obvious or less openly claimed.
Despite these distinct forms of relationship to politics, a shared feature seems to emerge: hacking — as well as the figure of the hacker related to it — refers to the category of cunning, in the sense of a practical intelligence identified by Detienne and Vernant (1974). This track extends an observation by Nicolas Auray, in a pioneering work (2000), for whom the exploratory curiosity and virtuosity of hackers constitute both a " critical awakening " and the manifestation of a form of power over and through technology . . Different surveys are mobilized in this issue, which report on the " tactics from the daily practice of the actors (Certeau 1980) and which underline the way in which these aim to short-circuit, to thwart, to subvert the forces present by resorting to ingenuity or even manipulation rather than to the accumulation of material means. Despite the diversity of its manifestations, we thus hypothesize that cunning constitutes a common resource as well as a fundamental disposition of actors who claim to be hacking , and that this category can shed light on the political nature of their actions.
From “hacker ethics” to hackers, an ambivalent figure
Just as the cunning being reveals himself through the tricks he performs, hacking as a practice refers consubstantially to the hacker, and to the qualities or even the virtues that he would manifest through his actions. Indeed, reference is regularly made to the figure of “ the ” hacker, as if a common thread linked together the practices mentioned above. This common framework initially took the form of a "hacker ethic", presented in Steven Levy's founding book (1984), which notably affirms openness through equal access to computers, freedom of movement of information, the rejection of authority and bureaucracies, a meritocracy based on practical skills, as well as an aesthetic and artistic ambition and an ability to " change his life for the better ”. The history of academic hackers, traced by Levy from the 1950s to the beginning of the 1980s and from MIT to Stanford University, is that of students for the most part, who stand out from other engineers and scientists for their ability to hijack the rules and to be creative.
In Levy's work, the transgression, the crossing of certain limits already constitute key elements of the hacker practice, whether it is a question of picking the locks of the rooms where the central computers of the university are kept, or more later to oppose the application of intellectual property to the field of software. However, a parallel genealogy, further away from university centers, places more emphasis on more marked hacker illegalities such as phreaking (contraction of phone and freak) which, from the 1970s, consisted of penetrating telephone communication systems to learn their secrets but also to take advantage of free calls, and which was also one of the matrices of computer hacking (Coleman 2012; Lapsley 2013).
Hacking is first and foremost an emic category defined by the actors themselves through writings as well as very diverse modes of interaction and sociability: "manifestos" ( The Hacker Manifesto by The Mentor, 1986 ) and " glossaries” ( The Jargon File , a file shared between various authors from 1975, then published as The Hacker's Dictionary in 1983); dedicated magazines ( 2600: The Hacker Quarterly founded in 1984, Phrak Magazinelaunched in 1985, and now numerous online publications); clubs and associations (like the Homebrew Computer Club where Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak tinkered in the mid-1970s, or the Chaos Computer Club launched in Germany in 1981 and has become a veritable institution); hundreds of conferences sometimes bringing together thousands of participants (Chaos Communication Congress, DEF CON etc.); places of collaboration and sharing of resources ( hacklabs and hackerspaces such as the famous Metalab in Vienna and Noisebridge in San Francisco); events ( hackathons that present themselves as computer coding competitions, or even cryptopartiesto train in the basics of computer security); mailing lists, IRC messengers and forums. Finally, the result of their actions is often directly observable: production of code and protocols (which can be shared in repositories ), of software (which sometimes become large-scale collective projects, as is the case for certain free software and open source ), alternative licenses, information leaks etc.
However, the first works on hackers are mostly journalistic accounts and they are presented alternately as "heroes" and "sorcerers" (Levy 1984; Hafner & Lyon 1996) capable of asserting their autonomy in the face of technical, or as "outlaws", "clandestines" ( underground) and “pirates” resisting the hegemonic aims of the major telecommunications operators and IT multinationals, the instrumentalization of the law and police repression (Hafner & Markoff 1991; Sterling 1992). In the United States, the Counterfeit Access Device and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, adopted in 1984 and amended several times, came to act on the notion of computer crime, introducing severe penalties and often considered disproportionate with regard to the wrongs committed; initially intended to prevent intrusions into the computer networks of federal institutions, it was also used to protect private commercial interests, targeting not only unauthorized access to systems but also the modification and copying of software.
Representations of hacking also draw on fiction: one of the founding novels of cyberculture which popularized the term "cyberspace" has as its (anti-)hero a mercenary hacker capable of leaving his physical envelope to enter mysteries of the great monopolistic powers with a view to “liberating” artificial intelligences (Gibson 1984). In the audiovisual productions that feature him, from the famous WarGames (1983) to the Mr. Robot series(2015-2019) praised for its realism, we also find this image of a talented but morally ambivalent individual, fighting against a powerful but fallible “system”. The figure of the hacker is therefore often that of an astute David in the face of the Goliaths that are the central computers, the software and the communication networks controlled by the economic or military powers; an actor dominated in certain respects but whose acuity and intimate knowledge of technologies is capable of stopping a centralized and excessively rationalized technostructure. In this relationship of the weak to the strong resides one of the fundamental springs of cunning: the weak are all the more encouraged to use cunning when they oppose a "strong" and cannot win. by conventional means. He must go around the obstacle,
With the generalization of personal computing and the rise of the web in the 1990s, each user was able to represent himself as a potential target of computer intrusions, information leaks or the spread of viruses. The economic incentives to commit computer theft also increased with the increasing digitization of business. The image of the hacker has thus undergone successive reversals and oscillated from the 1980s to that of " ardent (although eccentric) programmers capable of brilliant and unorthodox prowess in the manipulation of machines to that of vandals, crooks and even hooded terrorists threatening the established order from their keyboards (Nissenbaum 2004, p. 196). These representations are partly the result of the growing criminalization of hacker activities, contributing to building a form of deviance (Jordan & Taylor 1998; Thomas 2002) but which has also contributed to politicizing the issues (Sterling 1992; Taylor 1999) .
The theme of piracy associated with hackingreflects this ambiguity, with on the one hand the romantic dimension of freedom, autonomy and exploration, freed from constraints because beyond the reach of the State; and on the other the stigma of “the enemy common to all”, which not only is outside the laws but which puts them in danger. The same applies to cunning, which constitutes both a form of intelligence and deception: on the one hand, it is valued because it reflects the cognitive capacities and the audacity of the person who employs it; on the other hand, it constitutes an unfair manoeuvre, a circumvention of the rule which amounts to “cheating” (Detienne & Vernant, 1974, p. 19-20). But this stigma can be cheerfully reversed: the hacker as a cunning pirate also strongly demonstrates the “sense of justice” specific to digital natives, which sometimes leads them to infringe a legality perceived precisely as unfair or illegitimate (Auray 2009). The hacker thus adopts the face of the "vigilante" who circumvents a system of intellectual property rights that he considers unfair, or who launches direct actions (leaked documents, public denunciations, sabotage) against those responsible for what he considers as abuses of power, thus helping to (re-)politicize “ a world which, because it is technicized, is threatened by depoliticization ” ( ibid ., p. 173).
The hacker-pirate indeed transgresses the rules (or exploits the interstices between the rules) by claiming other rules presented as more legitimate, because taking into account the specificities of the digital space: his contestation of the norms therefore generates " a process conflictual construction of the rules of the digital space ” (Hayat and Paloque-Berges 2014). In addition, this conflict is of high intensity insofar as the two parties place it outside the legal and political field: the term "pirate" justifies exceptional treatment on the part of the authorities, while it demonstrates for those who claim a break with society and sometimes the affirmation of an alternative model of society ( ibid ..). At the end of this process, however, and after having been the " goads " and the " necessary renegades " of capitalism which push it to renew itself and adapt, the former pirates can also sometimes join the ranks of its " sovereign machine " . (Durand & Vergne 2010).
To put it in the words of Certeau (1980), the state-business complex develops a “ strategy ” through the deployment of institutions, the planning of a system and the control of a territory. Conversely, the hacker, pushed back to the margins, is par excellence the one who manages to take advantage of his mobility by exploiting contingencies and opportune moments, opposing himself by necessity in a " tactical " way - that is to say who “ uses, vigilantly, the loopholes that particular conjunctures open in the surveillance of proprietary power ” (1980, p. 63). To achieve this, he adopts attitudes and uses skills that can be grasped through the notion of cunning.
The subversion of norms or hacking as cunning intelligence
A growing volume of research in media studies , ethnology, sociology, and even history has made it possible to refine and deepen knowledge of the worlds of hacking , highlighting the diversity of hacker (counter-)cultures. For example, the light shed on the various European hacking "scenes"since the appearance of the personal computer (Alberts & Oldenziel 2014) comes to qualify a reading excessively centered on the experience of the United States. The socio-demographic characteristics of hackers — geographically dispersed, inclined to preserve their anonymity, and often evolving outside of any formal organization — remain however difficult to establish, especially since they also evolve over time. Many studies agree in describing a world largely dominated by men, generally quite young and from the middle classes, who perceive themselves as outsiders .and are united around a common subculture with its rites of passage (Turkle 1984; Jordan & Taylor 1998; Steinmetz 2016). Youthfulness and male self-segregation partly explain the construction of a hacker identity based on exploration, internal competition and transgression (Ensmenger 2015). This is the case at least in the first part of their "career", when they are most likely to engage in illicit activities, before joining the IT security industry or pursuing other projects, sometimes at the cost of a “double identity” (Auray & Kaminsky 2007).
The demonstration of technical skill is indeed a central point of hacker membership, which also explains why it is structured by a particular form of meritocracy: one is theoretically judged on what one "does" concretely (" code wins arguments ”) rather than on forms of institutional authority (diplomas, social status) — which leads to a very strong hierarchy of skills. A hack stands out from other computer-related actions and arouses admiration for its virtuosity, creativity or technical skill. It is therefore a question of standing out from the mainstream and of gaining a form of recognition by peers, whether for example on forums and discussion lists or during conferences. Conversely, thenoobs (neophytes) and script kiddies who glean “turnkey” solutions from these same forums are relegated to the very bottom of the ladder.
Thus, it is above all through their practices that hackers have been approached, and it is also what makes it possible to identify certain shared traits. As we said the hackinghas long been associated with a form of individual autonomy, in the face of technology first, but also by extension in the face of social and political systems (Jordan 2008). This idea echoes the teachings of the sociology of science and technology, according to which the scenarios that guide interaction with technology certainly exercise a form of power but rarely complete control, and are always conceived in a dynamic relationship with social actors. who “tinker” with their relationship to objects (Akrich 1987; Oudshoorn & Pinch 2003), which is particularly true of the personal computer in its infancy (Bardini & Horvath 1995). However, beyond an ingenious hack, this is also a way of reshaping the standards,stricto sensu (psychological manipulation, legal device such as copyleft ).
As Nicolas Auray (2000) has clearly shown, hacking consists not only of constructing or co-constructing the technical object, but also of developing strategies to maintain control of interactions. Hackers “ collect ” tricks — ranging from a few lines of code to sophisticated obfuscation techniques, remotely controlled botnets (“zombie machines”), unlocking programs, network address spoofing , backdoors and other Trojan horses — which allow them to anticipate situations but also to adapt to contingencies, by constantly adapting their toolboxes and methods. Hacking _presupposes demonstrating both dexterity and opportunism, relying on proven knowledge and concrete experience. From this perspective, hacking can be understood as a contemporary form of “cunning intelligence”, as Detienne and Vernant (1974) identified it in their work on the mètis of the Greeks. According to them, cunning has the characteristic of being " engaged in practice " and is not strictly speaking a concept, but rather " intellectual behaviors that combine flair, sagacity, foresight, flexibility of wit, pretense, resourcefulness, watchful attention, sense of opportunity, diverse skills, long-acquired experience " (ibid . p. 8 and 10).
Already in Lévi-Strauss, do-it-yourself constitutes experiential knowledge and a “ science of the concrete ” which comes to oppose the conceptual system elaborated by the engineer (Lévi-Strauss 1962, Ch. 1). And for Gabriella Coleman, who as an anthropologist is interested in a diversity of hacker cultures ranging from free software (2013) to the Anonymous movement (2014), hacking is at the point of convergence between craft and artifice / cunning / ruse ( craftiness ), playing on the proximity of these terms in English (2013; 2016; 2017). According to her, this alignment “ is perhaps the best place to find a common unifying thread across the diversity of the technical and ethical worlds of hacking. (2017, p. 162) or even a “ universal of hacking ” ( ibid., p. 164).
The notion of craft , as opposed to the industrial world, implies a know-how that belongs to the individual as well as a material production of which he remains master. It also refers to the sharing of tools, resources and techniques, to the transmission of empirical rules and standards of use, and to gestures sharpened by practice. Finally, it is associated with a form of requirement with regard to the work carried out, which constitutes its own purpose and its value and which takes precedence over the profit that it is possible to draw from it. The trick or the artifice ( craftiness ) is presented more as an “ aesthetic arrangement ” ( ibid., p. 163) for creativity, originality but also playfulness and sometimes deception, which is expressed for example through forms of humour, pranks and pranks (sometimes written into the computer code itself). In his book on Anonymous (2014), Coleman even makes the hacker a contemporary variation of the mythological archetype of the trickster (the rogue or "trickster") who, from the Greek god Dionysus to the facetious fairy of Celtic folklore, can divulging knowledge as well as sowing doubt and confusion, upsetting the order of things with its unpredictability. the tricksteris to mythological culture what the hacker is to digital culture: a figure of transgression, trouble, ingenuity, questioning of established hierarchies and power in place.
Add Comments