nice-game-chess, originally uploaded by the biella.

Today I wrapped up both of my classes. Usually the end of class/semester represents and is experienced as nothing short of pure, unadulterated joy and at both ends of the stick (student and professors alike experience similar emotions . Like my students, I am pretty beat and more than ready for a break. But I have to admit, I experienced the end of my hacker class with a tinge of sadness. This is the third time I have taught this class and each time, it seems like it becomes harder and harder to contain the class conversation and I enjoy them through and through. The last few classes were brimming with talk, which is what should exactly happen because by the last month students are walking/talking on a foundation built over the course of many weeks.

There is not much I would have changed about the syllabus (most of the readings were great-to-stellar) nor the class. But if there is one thing I am sorry about it is that we never watched War Games. The last time I taught the class, I was able to arrange various movie sessions and we watched War Games, Tron, and Sneakers (among a few others) and the students not only learned something about hacker media representations but did a little out-of-class bonding with the movies and lots of food.

Since space is such an issue at NYU, I decided not to forage or hunt for a suitable room (I have since found a connection who I think can hook me up with a room). But by missing War Games, we missed an important event in the history of hackerdom. The movie undoubtedly led to many a kids asking for a modem for xmas and I am sure led to a spike in hacking and phreaking 9 months later (or however long it takes for a kid to plead for a modem, get it, learn some new tricks etc).

It is also the case that while it helped usher in the image of the hacker as nefarious computer trickster, David Lightman was also a pretty cool, cute, and likable kid. Not a nerd but a geek. It perhaps represents the glimmerings of the transformation of the negative nerd into the positive geek (oh and the list keeps the list of girl geeks growing ), signaling the spread of the computer into mainstream society.

So next time I teach the class, there will certainly be more movies, War Games on the top of the list so that we can learn that “the only winning move is not to play.”

Space and place has long been important to hackers. Whether it was/is the university lab, the workplace, the hacker con, or the particularly high-tech city, hackers congregate and meet face to face, often and everyday. One semi-new development has been the explosion and proliferation of hacker labs and spaces, such as Noisebridge located in the Mission district of San Francisco Foulab in Montreal. I recently got back from San Francisco and was able to spend a few nights at Noisebridge and was jaw droppingly impressed. The space is, well, spacious and nice (and located right by the Bart, a real +++++), but more important is that it is a thriving collective with all sorts of geeky participants and they have just souped up the space with all sorts of equipment, from the usual suspects (lots of computers) to lots of electronic gear such as oscilloscopes.

What I also was impressed by was not only the blizzard of events but the open and accessible nature of the organization, which seemed to sit in some contrast to NYC’s hacker collective, NYC Resistor. Like so many organizations in this metropolis, they apparently are lacking in space to grow and the word on the streets (which I cannot confirm or deny as I have had very little contact with them but have heard this repeatedly) is that the organization has had a tough time letting in new members. Some folks are understanding of this given their space limitation, others have been less kind, and have referred to the group as a clique. There are already a few other initiatives under way to find a larger space so as to accommodate a more open, participatory atmosphere for a hacker space (sign up for the email list here but I imagine that over time the culture and developments of NYC Resistor will also change as new spaces develops and do hope that this creates the conditions for more access rather than less (and again, I know next to nothing of the situation though I suspect space plays a real limiting role as it does with nearly everything else in NYC).

And thankfully Rose White, a NYC-based sociology graduate student at CUNY, is paying close attention to the rise and development of these hacker spaces. She is well underway doing her dissertation dissertation on these hack spaces and I really look forward to her work.

update: The Axis of Awesome is a hacker space in L.A. and as far as I am concerned, dons the best name.

Today, the NYT has an interesting piece on the declining numbers of women in the field of computer science. Ultimately the article presents a bleak picture but does not give a firm sense of why this is so (I think because it is so hard to answer).

I do agree that if girls are not hopping on the computer at a young age and are not using it as a tool for production (they do use it a social tool), they are always going to have trouble catching up to men. Many CS majors, not to mention most hackers, develop quite intimate relations with the computer from a young age and thus have a level of comfort and expertise they have is nothing short of astonishing. If women are not developing that expertise as children but only much later in life, there will always be two classes of citizens in computing. Men, in other words, are native speakers, while women learn computing as a second language.

The comment I agree with less is the following:

Ms. Cassell identifies another explanation for the drop in interest, which is linked to the pejorative figure of the “nerd” or “geek.” She said that this school of thought was: “Girls and young women don’t want to be that person.”

It seems to be that in fact in the 80s and prior to that, the only word in town to describe computer folks were nerds. But geek arose to take its place and in part to take away the pejorative sting. Geek is cool. Nerd is not. And geek is now associated with all sorts of computer cultures in a way that it was not before. So it seems to be that more than ever, there is a positive geeky association with computing so in fact this would open the doors to more people than before.

Seegras asked

Until Eric S. Raymond turns up in 1990 with this: “CRACKER (krak’r) n. One who breaks security on a system. Coined c. 1985 by hackers in defense against journalistic misuse of HACKER,
see definition #6.”

And I’ve never heard before of this; so I presume ESR himself decided that people who break into systems are now called by a name which some other group had already applied to themselves. I anyone has some documents referring to this kind of “crackers” from before 1990 and not from ESR, I’d be happy to hear of. And I’ve got plenty of documentation on the other “crackers”, those who crack copyprotection, from 1980 onwards…

Does anyone know the answer? Have any thoughts? I penned a few comments below as well but won’t repeat them here. His comment as well as Nona’s reminded me of this brilliant shirt crafted by Mathew Garret.

So I usually don’t announce my publications on my blog and for various reasons. The main one is that I am more than a little embarrassed that some of them are behind walled gardens (but being I am a junior prof, I am not in a position to negotiate otherwise). Otherwise, some of my pieces are semi-jargony (in the academic sense) and may not be of interest to readers who I think are more geek than academic. Finally, the process of publishing is so slow, so long, and so painful, I try not to think about it, much less write about it, if I can help it. But I decided to announce this
piece , which is on hackers (surprise surprise) as it might be of interest to some readers and because people can download it for free here for the rest of the month (but registration is required )

Co-written with Alex “Rex” Golub, I am pretty happy to see in print although it is far more “academic” in its tone, argument, and language than most of everything else I have written. This is in part because the article is more theoretical than ethnographic (hence the journal, Anthropological Theory) and tackles the question of liberalism alongside hacking. It seeks to demonstrate that these can be talked about 1) together and in cultural terms 2) that we we can identify some cohesive elements to hacking and liberalism, in part by placing them in conversation with each other 3) and yet we can also locate plurality and diversity within liberalism and hacking as well. This is a lot to tackle and cover in one piece under 35 pages and I am sure it could have been pulled off better but I think it is is a decent start to thinking about these questions. If you are interested but are allergic to academicalese, sticking to the Introduction, the Hacker Ethical Practice: Three Examples section, and Conclusion, will give you a taste of the arguments while avoiding most of the jargon.

The irony of this article is that even if it hits at some pretty theoretical issues, it was provoked by a mundane conversation and disagreement I had with one hacker, Karl Fogel, over another hacker, Kevin Mitnick. After returning from the hacker conference, HOPE, I had dinner with Karl and told him about Kevin Mitnick’s keynote speech, which I found particularity enjoyable and entertaining. After calling Mitnick a hacker, Karl responded with the following: Kevin is not hacker. He is a cracker.” Though I think I convinced him that cracker may not be the best word for him (and he convinced me there are differences between hacking, noting perceptively that “his primary motivation seemed to be getting access to something he wasn’t allowed to have access to—that is, it was more about breaking the rules and the thrill of crossing a social line, than about learning a technical system.“), I decided that I wanted to write a piece that squarely addressed tensions and differences among hackers instead of whitewashing them away as most authors, journalist, and even some hackers do.

(more…)

So we are about 1/2 way done with my hacker class and I have to say it has been a pretty fun ride, especially since many students thought hacking was all about pimply kids engaging in malicious acts of computer violence and many had no knowledge of basic technological concepts like UNIX or source code. We had to first sweep away the cobwebs of misrepresentation and replace with a more solid foundation of facts (however messy the world of hacking still is!)

But after building a foundation, you still wonder whether students are learning. Traditionally we gauge progress with exams or essays, which can be effective but let’s face it, at times a little tedious. But today a student sent me the following very short email, which made me realize I had another barometer at my disposal to gauge their progress xkcd:

http://xkcd.com/344/

I wouldn’t have gotten the joke if it wasn’t for you. Thanks.

The email not only made me smile (for it is always nice to know your students are leaning something) but it gave me the idea that in the future I might include a comic based exams composed of 5-10 comic strips (many from xkcd) and ask for an exegesis of them. Why not? Seems like fun to me. And it would be great to include the following as one of my course objectives: “By the end of this class you will be able to read xkcd and actually understand (most) of it.” If they could do that, well, they must have learned at least something

update:

One of my readers, Florian, sent this nice bit, which I have not read before:

“I read your blog via Planet Debian and immediately felt reminded of Jane
Goodall’s Foreword to Gary Larson’s The Far Side Gallery 5 which I’d
like to share with you:”

| Recently I was talking with one of the best researcher know, Tim
| O’Halloran. He has been able to inspire generations of middle and high
| school students to care for the natural world. Tim told me that Gary
| Larson has had a major impact on his teaching. Tim uses Far Side
| cartoons to introduce topics, to illustrate points, and to “reinforce
| the notion that the more we investigate the universe, the richer is our
| experience.” When designing exam papers Tim finds the cartoons “ease the
| tension and spark the memory.” It all began when, in the fall of 1985,
| he was given the task of teaching science to 162 Tulsa ninth-graders who
| were convinced that it was absolutely irrelevant to their futures. Tim
| put one hundred Far Side cartoons on a large bulleting board, and told
| the students to study them. The consensus was that they didn’t
| understand the humor – The Far Side was “too weird”. However, Tim wrote
| me, “Each time we completed a unit and the students approached the
| bulletin board with newly acquired wisdom, I smiled quietly and thanked
| the cosmos for Gary’s perspectives as the kids roared with the confident
| laughter of the enlightened.”

Having taught myself for a while, I can fully and happily relate.

Later in the semester, and for my hacker course, we will be reading Understanding Comics, which will give us a bit of a meta perspective on why comics are so good at conveying a certain type of message. I can’t wait to read it as I have heard it is fantastic.

Parties around the world were held yesterday to celebrate Software Freedom Day. I went to the NYC party which attracted an impressive number of people who were mingling and celebrating on the beautiful rooftop of Limegroup/Limewire office. Here are a few pictures and a short video of Eben Moglen who has done a whole lot to make software freedom a reality today.

My class has started with the “reportage” of our class with this excellent post and overview, which covers our initial comparison of the early phone phreakers and the early MIT hackers. I am excited to see the blog develop.

So, I am pleased to announce that my course on hackers, which has already started, will be hosting a class blog, STDIN.

Starting next class when we address phone phreaking, we will have one entry summarizing in some details each class readings and discussions. There is one student in charge for every class and then anyone else can post as they wish. I am also making an effort to post various definitions and examples of hackers, hacking, hacks and compile a master list at the end. I am not sure it will produce anything interesting except a list of definitions, but sometimes you see new associations and meanings when with such a comparative potpourri.

The fall semester is right around the corner and I have spent the last week obsessively tweaking my hacker course. I think I finally crafted a syllabus I can live with for the rest of the semester.

I say “live with” because of what I excluded, which I simply did not want to (notably there is no material on DeCSS/DMCA, hacking the I-Phone, and I wanted to do more on encryption). But the good thing is I will be teaching this again in the future and will learn how to rotate in and out some of this material. Now I am off to enjoy a final free day before teaching responsibilities really begin.