36C3 Preroll music Herald: Two speakers, that are on stage today are both anthropologists and they are both experts on hacking culture. Today also, they launched a website HackCur.io. And which is also the name of the talk 'hack_curio, decoding the Cultures of Hacking'. One video at a time. I welcome Gabriella, a.k.a. Biella Coleman and Paula Bialski. Applause Paula Belsky : Hello. Hello. Yes, good evening. CCC is so lovely to be here. We are super excited to stand before you here today and present a project we've been working on for the past year or so. Biella: Would not have been finished if it were not for this talk. Paula: Exactly. Biella: So thank you. Paula: Exactly. Thanks for forcing us to stand before you and get away from our desks. Here's a drink, some wine, have some 11:30 PM discussion with you and there's no better place to launch the project that we're gonna show you then at the CCC. So we're super excited to be here. Let's start with the very basics. What is hack_curio? What is it that you guys are gonna see in the next hour or so? Hack_curio is a web shot site featuring short video clips all related to computer hackers. Now a bit a bit of background. My name is Paula Bialski and I am a sociologist. I'm an ethnographer of hacker cultures. I study corporate hacker developers. And for those of you who don't know Biella Coleman. Biella: I'm an anthropologist. I also study computer hackers. And we, along with Chris Kelty, have helped to put this Website together. Paula: Exactly. And in the past year, we've decided to come together and bring all sorts of clips from public talks, from documentaries, from Hollywood films, mems, advertising, all sorts of sources. We've brought together these videos that also come together short descriptions by authors, by scholars, by journalists, by people who know something about hacker cultures. And we brought that together all in one place. So call it a museum, call it a compendium, call it a web site. And it's a place for you to really pay homage to you guys, because hackers come in all shapes and sizes. What it means to hack, might mean something to you, but might mean something very different to you. And we decided as anthropologists, we think it's very important to represent a certain culture in a certain way. We're not just hackers in hoodies. It's a really diverse culture. So we're going to talk about that today. Biella: All right. So like, how did this project come into being? Like, why are we here? Why did we spend the last year doing this? Well, you know, first of all, it wasn't created. I didn't create it because I had this idea in mind. It was created because I started to collect videos for a reason. I'm a professor and I twice a week stand in front of students who are on the Internet, on Facebook, maybe buying shoes. And it's really hard to get their attention. And you know, what I found using videos in class was an amazing way to get them off Facebook and paying attention to what to me. Right. So over the years, I just collected a lot of videos. Right. Video after video after video after video. And in certain point. I was like, you know, I have this private collection, semi private collection they use in class. Why don't I transform it into a public resource and more so as someone who studied hackers for many years, why don't I kind of make it into a collaborative project? Why don't I tap into the kind of expertise that exists among hackers and journalists and researchers and academics and draw them in? And so I decided to do that right. Until about a year and a half ago, I brought together a couple of other people like Paula, Chris Kelty, who's another curator. And I said, like, let's get this going. So when we were kind of fashioning the project, we were also thinking like, what are we trying to do with this project? Right. You're not my students. I don't see you twice a week. And so we came up with some goals and we don't know if we're gonna achieve these goals. The site literally is going live like right now. But this is what we're trying to do with a project. We're trying to chip away at simplistic conceptions and stereotypes of hackers. We know these exist. Can we chip away at them? Right. We want to offer new perspectives on what hackers have actually done and what they do. A really important thing which Paula has already kind of mentioned is showcase the diversity of hacking. Right. People who do block chain and free software and security. And there's there's similarities, but there's also differences like let's try to show this. And while this is not an archive, this is not the Internet Archive. We are trying to kind of preserve bits and bytes of hacker history. So these are the four goals. And we do feel that video. Right, is a nice medium, a mechanism to achieve these four goals. It's persuasive, it's compelling, it's memorable. It's fun. Like we like to waste time at work on video. Right. So we're like, hey, let's add a little persuasive punch to Tex. And this is why we decided to do it this way. Paula: Exactly. So what happens when you click on the site today and how is it organized? We want to show you a little bit of of the actual architecture of the site itself. So we got. When you click on the Web site, you see as... you see certain categories, we've grouped the videos in two different categories because as you say, there's a huge diversity. So you can see here, Biella is lovely here, pointing out the beautiful categories. We've got anti security hackers, block chain hackers. We've got free and open the software, we've got phreaking, we've got hacker depictions. You can look at all sorts of sort of different categories. You go onto a category, website site and then you have a blurb about what this subculture of hacking is all about or what this what the aim is, exactly what the theme is. And then you have all sorts of little videos that last maybe 30 seconds, maybe a few minutes. And under these videos, you would look at the video and then you would have a little bit of a blurb. It's not an essay. It's not a book. It's not some boring academic text. It's supposed to be funny. It's supposed to be for your grandmother's to read. It's supposed to be actually accessible and understandable. Right. So you have the video and the actual text itself. Right. So this is how it looks like. And this is maybe some sample of our content itself. What do we have? We've got 42 entries at the moment which we've collected from, as I said, various different academics with different authors. And by the end of 2020, we would love to have around 100, 100 entries and we'd try to publish around 50 or 20 entries. Biella: after that. Because it's really brutally hard to edit academics. Paula: Exactly. Exactly. And so we've got what you'll find. These are just some examples. We'll get into some really of the videos in just a moment. But for example, you would look at hackers and engineers humming at the Internet Engineering Task Force, or you look at an entry that's about the programing legend, of course, Grace Hopper being interviewed by a clue, David Letterman. Maybe you guys have seen this video, a block chain ad that people see it or you'd say you'd ask, is this real? It's kind of wacky ad or is it parody? And when you watch you, you have to know that this is actually real. The actor Robert Redford showing off his mad social engineering skills with the help of cakes and balloons or how to make sense of why algerien hacker Hamza Bender Lodge dressed by U.S. government smiles and how many people from Algeria understand his grin. So this kind of various diversity of really what hacking is really all about. Biella: But but we're here to get the video party started. Paula: Exact right. From audience: Exactly! Finaly. Fine. Let's get started. Yeah. Biella: with a little Background. Paula: Exactly. Exactly. Ok. So which I'm going to start with the day. You start. You start. Biella: All right. So we thought it would be a good idea to start with phone phreaking, because phone phreaking really developed at the same time. If not kind of before computer hacking. And we're going to show Joy Bubbles. Joe Ingrassia, who is, you know, often considered to be the grandfather of phone phreaking. So let's go to a video. Text from Video Speaker1: In the days when calls went through, the operators phreaking wasn't possible. But as humans switchboards were replaced by mechanical systems, different noises were used to trigger the switches. Whistling If you'd had perfect pitch like blind phone free Joe Ingrassia, you could whistle calls through the network. Joe: Let's see if I make it this time. This is really hard to do, it sounded like all the tones were present, so the phone should be ringing a bell. Now. Okay. I get the phone, it just take a little while... Speaker1: He even showed off his skills at the local media. Speaker2: From his one phone to a town in Illinois and back to his other phone, a thousand miles phone call by whistling. Joe Ingrassia.... Biella: right? Very cool, right? So Joe Ingrassia is featured. And Joan Donovan, who is like a mad researcher at Harvard University, wrote a really awesome entry about that. No, of course, she emphasizes things like, you know, while hacking is often tied to computers, it's often tied to any system that you could understand, improve, fix, undermine. And the phreakers really showed that. Right. And of course, the history of phone phreaking is about blind kids. Not everyone who is a freak was blind, but many of them were. They met each other in camp and kind of exchanged information. And that was one of the ways in which phone phreaking grew. Phone phreaking really grew as well. When a big article in 1971 was published by Roone Rosin Bomb in Esquire magazine, who has read that article? Is anyone? It's incredible. We mentioned it, I think, in a piece. Check it out. Phreaking freaking exploded after that article. The spelling phreaking changed from Capital F Freak to Ph. Because of that article, phreaking also grew when blue boxes were created. Right. This is also something that Joan writes about in her entry. One of the cool things that Joan writes about and then I'm going to turn it over to Paula again is that some phreaks train birds, OK, to freaking phreak. Let's just leave it at that, because that's pretty cool. All right. Paula: OK. Are you guys ready now to cringe? There we need a little bit of a cringing moment as well. So without further ado, this is Steve Ballmer that would like to do some dancing. Biella: From Microsoft. You just don't know. Music Paula: OK. Yeah, that's right. Biella: I just want to say one little thing. Paula: Yeah, of course there's a remix of this with goats screaming like, look it up. It's awesome. Paula: Exactly. But why do we show Steve Ballmer the sort of like Godfather? Exactly. Kind of an anti hacker of sorts. I myself am a staff who've worked among a corporate culture of software developers. Aren't hackers per se? But if you think of a figure like Steve Ballmer, a lot of you guys who perhaps identify yourself as hackers, you have day jobs, you go to work and you have to make some money in order to live and do work on your own projects. And you often have to face sort of mini Steve Ballmers at work. And this is a quote that I have my own entry that I did right next to this video. Steve Ballmer, even Ballmers unbridled display of exuberance is exceptional. Many software developers will have to deal with Mini Steve Ballmers every day. Biella: We are sorry that you do. But If you do - you do. Paula: Exactly. And so this but this exuberance is all about these sort of slogans of win big, save the world while building technology, be awesome, be true, whatever it is your corporate slogan is. And there is, I think, the way in which the software developer and sort of the hackers that work in their day jobs challenge this sort of really intense exuberance of wearing your corporate T-shirt and smiling every day in a way in which you hack your daily projects, you work on your own private projects on the side. You actually do have many acts of resistance in a way to this kind of loud, massive exuberance. And I talk about these sort of side line mini hacks that happen on an everyday corporate culture. Biella: Check out your entry. It's really funny. All right. So now we're going to hacktivists. So who here has heard of Phineas Fisher? All right. Awesome. Just in case, for those who are watching the video now or later, I'm going to give a little bit of background. But I love this video about Phineas Fisher because he's explained what he or the group has done, but he also does kind of a very clever media hack. So for those that don't know who Phineas Fisher, is he or the group is a hacktivists that claims to be inspired by Anonymous, says Jeremy Hammond. He's hacked into various corporations from FinFisher to hacking team. And what he did was take documents, take e-mail and then publish them. And these were important in ways that I'll talk about in a moment. He's donated, I think, stolen bitcoins to rush over government. In this fall. He published a manifesto kind of calling for public interest hacking and claims he would give one hundred thousand dollars to anyone who does this. So now I'm going to show the first and I believe only interview that he has done. And he did this with Vise News a couple of years ago. Video starts Let's do this. These are the exact words from our live text exchange, voiced by one of my colleagues. Colleage: So why did you hack hacking team? Cermet: Well, I just for the citizen lab reports on FinFisher and hacking team and thought, that's fucked up. And I hacked them. Colleage: What was the goal on hacking the hacking team data? Were you tried to stop them? Cermet: For the locals. I don't really expect leaking data to stop a company, but hopefully can at least set them back a bit and give some breathing room to the people being targeted with their software. Video ends Biella: OK, so this does not yet exist on Hack_Curio. I have to write the entry, but because I was so busy getting the other site in preparation, I haven't done it, but it will happen in the next few weeks. But what I love about this video is, first of all, he's like hacking media representations. Right? I mean, even when awesome journalists like Motherboard publish on hackers or other kind of entities, they still kind of use a masked hacker even once they published about FinFisher and they put like a mask on him. And it's like hackers have heat, like they don't need a mask. Right. And there is this this sense where there's always a kind of demonic, masked figure. And he was like, OK, I'll do this interview, but you have to represent me as like a lovable Muppet like figure. Right? So he's there hacking the media. But what's also really interesting in it. And you watch the full video, it's kind of amazing. Is that, you know, he kind of claims, oh, I didn't have much of in fact, I don't think he could do anything, but in fact, first of all, the information that was released really reaffirms what people suspected. For example, and in the case of hacking team who was selling problematic exploit spyware to dictatorial regimes. We really got a confirmation that this was happening. And in fact, eventually hacking team even lost her license. Right. This was like a direct effect from what FinFischer did. So really, it's it's a kind of amazing video that showcases what he was doing, his reasoning, and then was a performance, literally, a puppet that hacked the media. OK, so now we're going to rewind a little bit and go back in time. So a lot of hackers care about cryptography. Right? And ever since the cipher punks. And since that period, there have been projects from TOR to Signal that have enabled cryptography. That has been really important for human rights activists and others. But one of the great, great kind of encryption projects came from this fellow, Tim Jenkins, who here in the room has heard of Tim Jenkins. OK. This is amazing. This is why we're doing kind of hack_curio. So Tim Jenkins is from South Africa. And beginning in 1988, secret messages were sent and received regularly across South Africa borders using an encrypted telematics system assembling assemble during the final years of the South African liberation struggle and Tim Jenkins, along with Ronnie Press, who has since passed away, created the system. And Tim Jenkins was kind of like a phone phreak. And that was one of the reasons, like he was good at working with phones. And what was amazing about this system, which was part of Operation Vula, was that allowed people in South Africa to communicate with leaders in exile - in London. Right? And Tim Jenkin created this system. I'm going to show a video about it in a moment. And Sophie Dupin has written a terrific entry. The reason why we have him with the key there was that like, you know, the South African apartheid government did not really like Tim Jenkins, so they threw him in jail. Well, a lot of hackers lock pick. He actually created 10 wooden keys secretly in the wooden shop and broke out of jail. I mean, talk about like taking lock picking to like another sort of level. All right. So let's listen and see the video about this incredible program. Video starts Tim Jenkin: After we sent in the first computer. We expect things to start immediately, but it actually took a couple of weeks. And then suddenly one day I was sitting at my desk and the telephone answering machine suddenly started roaring and I thought, this must be the wrong number or something. But then, sure enough, I heard the distinctive tone of the messages and I could hear this thing coming through the tape. Modem 14.5k sound Word, and word, and word. And then it stopped and I loaded the message onto my computer. In fact, it was a report from Matt. And sure enough, there was our first message. Absolutely perfect. sound of a printer working Video ends Biella: Ah, fax machine. OK. So this is from the entry by Sophie Dupin, who is writing a dissertation on this topic. The international hacker community has since taken notice of Tim Jenkins and the Vula encrypted communication system that embodies so many qualities often associated with exceptional, with an exceptional hack. Elegant, clever, usable and pragmatic. Right? Jenkins has been invited to speak at the Berlin Logan Symposium in 2016 and to lock picking communities in the Netherlands and the United States. In 2018 the RSA Security Conference gave Jenkin the first award for excellence in humanitarian service. So just like one last thing, this is a good reminder that histories of computer hacking are often skewed. They often actually start with the United States. When, for example, in Europe with the CCC, that story's been told in bits and pieces, but deserves a much longer or much larger showcase. And actually this example also shows that, for example, the history of encryption when it comes to communication didn't even necessarily start in the United States. Right? And so it's really, really important to kind of showcase these histories that haven't been told elsewhere. Paula: So maybe by now you're kind of getting at the fact that we see hacking as a diverse practice. Hackers as a diverse group of people who do different things. And at the moment we're going I want to come back to the ways in which hackers challenge power through challenging really the very stereotype of what gender means and challenging, really gender politics. And it will start to turn to this topic by looking at an entry that a woman named Christina Dunbar Hester has done on a woman named Naomi Cedar. And some of you probably know Naomi Cedar. This is part of her entry. And she wrote, Naomi Cedar is a programmer and core participant in the Python programing language community. As a trans identified person, Cedar grappled with whether she would have to give up everything in order to transition and whether the community would accept her for doing so. So let's watch a clip of the video and let's see how Naomi Cedar challenge that. Biella: I think she gave this talk at PyCon, the Python Open Source Developer conference, and it's really incredible talk. I really encourage you to watch the whole talk. But this is a question. This is the moment where she's like, do I have to leave the community or can I transition in the community? Paula: Exactly. So let's watch a tiny clip. clip starts I decided that to do that would probably mean giving up everything. Remember, back at 13, I had absorbed this into my brain that the only way you were going to get out of this was to basically leave everything. And this was a very painful thing to think about. But like a lot of trans people, I had come to the point where even if I lost everything, that was fine. So I started to think about other alternatives here. I had toyed with the idea of doing the education summit as a farewell thing to the community. I would do it and then disappear, go into the witness protection program. The only problem was I actually started accelerating the pace of my transition because, well, it was just such freaky relief to start moving in that direction that that wouldn't work. So I actually thought about what was for me hacking back to Laverne Cox, a very revolutionary idea. What if I just did it and was open about it? First thing I looked at codes of conduct. I looked for specifics. What happens to me if there is a problem? If I am harassed? This was important to me. Other thing I did was I started telling a few people Jesse Nola, Avi Alaska. Some people I would work with PyCon on and they were all pretty cool with the idea. And the more I talked about it, the more I decided that I would go ahead and take that chance. So I did. I started by teaching at some Python workshops for women. I spoke at some conferences. We went to PyCon . It was good. The education summit was fine. Okay. Some of the people I worked with in organizing it were a little bit confused when the names on the emails changed. I apologize, but in general it went pretty well. In fact, the more open I was, the easier it was on. It was for me because I didn't have to worry about being outed. And it was easier for other people because they certainly knew what to expect. The other interesting sidelight is that when I told people they sometimes felt an obligation to share some deep, dark secret about themselves, like I kind of thrump them and they had to answer back. So my takeaway here is that, we talk a lot about diversity and that's real. So we should be ending on this point, except that I'm a contrarian in my old age. So it is not quite all rainbows and unicorns or as you might put it, this is kind of common in social justice circles right now. We don't get a cookie. Video ends Paula: All right. And yeah, yeah, Paula and Biella are applauding Biella: He's a very powerful player. Paula: Exactly. And I guess we could also say that the next if I want to show that after the entry by Christina Dunbar Hester, Naomi Cedar actually gave a response to this entry, which we've also published, which we also want to do. We want to have a discussion between some of the responses to the actual very areas. Biella: So we actually wanted to quote it in full. Paula: Yeah, exactly. So perhaps. Let's read, let's read this this section from the response of Naomi Cedar. PyCon itself has continued to evolve into an ever more diverse place with an ever stronger representation of queer folks, people of color, people who speak different languages, etc. Codes of conduct are nearly universal these days, and more often than not, communities insist that they be well crafted and meaningful and backed up by real enforcement. Even in these retrograde times of official attacks on the rights of so many groups, we have come a long way. But just as I said five years ago, it's still not all rainbows and unicorns. Too many groups throughout the open source world globally are making only token efforts to foster inclusion. And in my opinion, too many members of privileged groups tend to focus on supervisual or cosmetic changes rather than addressing the underlying fundamental issues. Marginalized groups face. It doesn't take a bit away from how far we've come to also acknowledge how much we still have to do. Naomi Cedar. So this really part we wanted to discuss this in the way in which hacking is also a practice of challenging power, challenging stereotypes and challenging really gender norms in many ways. All right, let's move on. Biella: All right. So the final frontier. We have three more videos to show. Before we get to the Q and A. In all videos relate to geopolitics and hacking. You know, hacking has always been political in some fashion, if for no other reason than sometimes laws are challenged. You're you're doing what you're doing, something that someone doesn't want you to do. Right. But there's only been certain moments, where nation states have been interested in hacking or there have been sort of ways in which nation states have used hacking. For example, recently in order to kind of engage in international politics. So we're going to kind of focus on these last, the last three videos will focus on these issues. We're at the CCC. So of course, I wanted to show a video related to CCC. Unfortunately, I don't have one related to the German CCC. Please do send good videos related to the CCC to me. But I am going to show one related to the FCCC established in Lion by Jean-Bernard Condat. So do people know what the F stands for? All right. What does it stand for? One Auditor: French? Biella: French. OK. Once you see the video. Oh no. Hold on. You will also see that it stands for fake and fuck as well, because basically the French chapter of the CCC was established in part to try to entrap hackers in order to kind of work for the French government. It's a fascinating story that's been told in bits and pieces and I'm going to say a little bit more about it. But now I'm going to show a clip from a French documentary that kind of, you know, charts a little bit of that history. It's in French with subtitles. Video is in progress Biella: OK. So pretty incredible, right? And this story has been told in bits and pieces by French journalists. I'm working with another French journalist to try to kind of uncover the fuller history, as well tell the story of kind of American and European hackers who did not get recruited by intelligence, but who nevertheless came from the underground, because they were breaking into systems, not maliciously, but they learned a lot and they had really valuable knowledge that no one else had. I mean, it's kind of really incredible, right? And, you know, this history, whether it's just that the transformation of the underground into security hackers or in the case of France, where some portion of people were tapped to work for intelligence informally, formerly with pressure. Right. Has yet to be written. And there's many remarkable elements about this. But basically, I do think it's remarkable that it's a bunch of kind of amateurs who just were obsessed with with networks who were the ones holding the special knowledge that were needed, that was needed by corporations and intelligence in order to start securing systems. Right. The other kind of really interesting thing is that some of the best underground non malicious hacker crews were European. TESO, which had a lot of Austrian and German members. ADM, which is from France, was considered to be the best at exploit writing. Rights. So the entry, which I'm going to write with a French journalist is going to reflect on this. And this is actually a big project that I'm working on as well. So I'll have more to say about it later. All right. So going from the past to the present. Paula: Exactly. And I guess we couldn't talk to you politics and hacking without talking about Trump, talking about Putin. A slew of politicians that we know in recent years has used the hacker for their own political discourse, for their somehow political gain. And with this next video will show us just that. This is our hacker depictions section. It was posted by a scholar named Marietta Brezovich. So without further ado, let's listen to the way in which Putin sees the hacker. Video is in Progress Paula: So I don't know if Putin was reading a Russian Hacker for the night. Biella: best image of the night. Possibly. I don't know. Paula: We weren't sure if Putin is reading Paul Graham's Hackers & Painters on the toilet or some of his other Hacker cultures literature. But it seems like he's getting something right. Right. We kind of think, hey, you kind of got it. It's not hackers actually. Biella: well, except for one part. Paula: Exactly. That's what we want to say. In some ways, yes. It's true. The hackers are artistic and creative, etc. Biella: They just don't wake up early in the morning. Paula: Exactly. Maybe they don't wake up early in the morning. But what's important, I think in here and this is also what Brezovich points out in her entry, is that he uses this, of course, for his political gain to show that he is not influencing any hackers or any technologists, who maybe identify as hackers or not. He's not influencing them. And because they are so free and artistic and sort of living in their sort of creative world that they're beyond his control. Right? So partially it's true. But partially he's gonna employing this to make a political statement about his non involvement with any sort of role. Biella: And what's interesting is all evidence points to the fact that that technologists who did the hacking just work at intelligence organizations. Paula: Exactly. Biella: All right. So we just had one more video and we'll end on a positive note. Right? A lot of stuff around hackers is sometimes depressing, especially when it comes to the law. They get arrested, they get thrown in jail. They commit suicide. Paula: True. Biella: And so we want to showcase a video that covers British and Finnish hacker Lauri Love, who's presented here at the CCC. Some of you may know that he face extradition to the United States due to his alleged involvement with Anonymous operation called #OpLastResort, which was kind of in support of Aaron Swartz, who had committed suicide when he was facing many criminal charges. And we'll watch a clip where parliamentarians and others debate his case. Video proceedes A young man with Asperger's syndrome awaits extradition to the United States, facing charges of computer hacking and is then likely to kill himself. It sounds familiar. He's not, of course, Gary McKinnon, who is saved by the prime minister. But Lauri Love, who faces, in a fact, a death sentence. So when the prime minister introduced the form above to, in her words, provide greater safeguards for individuals, surely she expensed it to protect the vulnerable, like Gary McKinnon, like Lauri Love. The honorable gentleman. My honorable friend obviously campaigned long and hard for Gary McKinnon. And obviously I took that decision because at that time it was a decision for the home secretary to decide whether there was a human rights case for an individual not to be extradited. We subsequently changed the legal position on that. So this is now a matter for the courts. There are certain parameters that the courts look at in terms of the extradition decision, and that is then passed to the home secretary. But it is for the courts to determine the human rights aspects of any case that comes forward. It was right, I think, to introduce the form box, to make sure that there was that challenge for cases here in the United Kingdom, as to whether they should be held here in the United Kingdom. But the legal process is very clear and the home secretary is part of that legal process. Biella: OK, so the author of the entry, Naomi Colvin, is right there in front. And she has a great sentence which says in Lauri Love, the U.S. had definitively chosen the wrong target principle, passionate and articulate, certainly more articulate than Theresa May herself in the clip which accompanies this article, Love versus USA would be one for the underdog. And it was Love one. He's not being extradited. And in part, it was also because Naomi Colvin was part of the team that stopped it. So let's thank Naomi as well as. Applause And it's just really important to document some of the wins every once in a while. So do check. Check that out. So we are now going to wrap up said that there's going to be 10 minutes for Q and A, but a few final reflections about this project. Paula: So I think these videos show actual hackers and hackings and at a more level meta level demonstrated how hackers have become central to our popular imagination. How hackers and hacking are one medium to think through digital cultures, to think through politics. I mean, we care about culture. We care about representing digging deep, looking at various angles of a certain culture. And I think that's the purpose. Where I see this is the purpose of Biella and mine, and Chris', and our friends projects is that we really want to take the work that we've been doing and really pay tribute to this really huge, diverse community that that you are. Biella: On a more practical level being a little less meta. We do hope that people assign hack_curio entries in their courses. You could use them in high school. You can use them in college classes. You know, heck, you know, maybe you could even use them in middle school, elementary. I don't know if that will work. But get it out there. And also for some of you, I think it will be fun to look at different tidbits of hacker history. And when you're at home for the holidays before you come to the CCC and you're like, man, my parents don't really understand what I do. So you could fire up a video that kind of represents what you do and fire up another video that represents what you don't do. Paula: And have a discussion. Haven't especially. Biella: And so this is our last slide. What next? The site is Life. Share It. Our Twitter address is up there. We consider this a soft launch. We have 42 entries, but we'll get some feedback and tweet things, send video suggestions, spread the word. And to end before Q and A. We just really want to thank the CCC. We want to thank Lisa for having us here. This is really an amazing place to launch. And we also want to thank everyone who made this possible from funding to the authors to the entire hack_curio team. So thank you so much. And we're here for a little Q & A. Applause Herald: Thanks a lot for this beautiful talk. We are now open for the question. Mics. If there's any questions from the audience, please just stand up to one of the mics. Paula: Don't be shy. Herald: Nobody is more interested in hacking culture? Are you overwhelmed? Paula: Someone. Herald: Yeah. There's someone on mic 1. Please. Mic1: Thank you for this talk and for the energy that was in your talk. It was just amazing! I have one question to ask. What was like the... way more like surprising moments for you in this, like, research journey. Paula: OK, that's a good question. Biella: I mean. In terms of the project, you know, collaborating with others and building a Web site is very different than what academics often do, where we do often have to rely on ourselves and we get feedback. You know what I mean? And I think it does give a sense of the really beautiful relations that form, where you go back and forth with an author, with a web developer. You know, it really does give you a sense of the deep social ties that we do have as academics. But I think it's much, much deeper with hackers. That's one thing. But I do think I mean, I am frustrated as an academic, where a lot of people do have very, very, very narrow conceptions of hackers. It's not a perfect world. And there's a lot which, you know, we can change. There is very clear also that as academics, we weren't necessarily changing perceptions so much. And this project was an effort to finally do that. It's like see them like stop listening or reading just my words, because obviously that's not really changing chat, you know, so come see some of the videos. Yeah. Paula: Yeah. And I guess for me, I also mean, if you work in your own little bubble and you work in your own little corner, just in any type of science, you don't see as much as what's going on out of there. And I for me, the whole definition of what it is to hack what a hacker actually is, you start really opening your eyes out when you see while there's 50 hundred other scholars out there that are actually think that a hacker is this or hackers that. And I think for me, that opened my eyes up really saying, hey, well, this is what you think it means. So interesting know. Herald: Thank you. Now a question from mic 2, too, please. Mic2: Hi, thank you for the talk. It was very enlightening. I have two questions. The first one would be, could you tell us maybe a bit more about the server and infrastructure you using or are you just linking YouTube videos? And the second one would be, how would you envision future engagement with students? Because I'm teaching a course for computer scientists undergrads. And we did something similar around movies and descriptions that they have to make around hacker movies. And they don't really learn how to reflect on social issues a lot in the studies. So I wonder how does this could be integrated into platform and how that could how you could engage students further? Biella: So great questions. I mean, first of all, for the Web site, it runs on WordPress. It just seemed like an easy way to, like, hack it up for this sort of thing. And we hired actually a master student from my department at McGill University. Thanks to all. You're awesome. And then we're hosting the videos on Vimeo and they come from all sorts of different places. That's actually not the best or the most ideal solution. And so far as like, you know, who knows if Vimeo is going to exist in 15 years? Right. Internet Archive. We looked into them and they were kind of like psyched about it, that it was going to be slower to deliver the video. Right? So maybe if the project grows, we can at a certain point host our own videos. Right? But like we'll have to sort of graduate there at the next level. The entries are all going to be creative comments and we're using clips that then we cite the entire clip and where it came from. We consider this fair use and for those that may be wondering. And so we'll see how that goes. Paula: And for the second, I guess I could take the second question. When ever I mean, my students are not their digital media students. They're not from computing science. But if you ever even try to touch along something around culture or something, maybe real social science is always, I think, ask how is power really how these people relate to power? How did they relate to critique? How do they use these tools to critique something? And I think all of these videos and maybe even the videos that your students chose, if they just asked that question, whether they're studying computing science, whether they're studying geography or whatever it is, if they look at it from a form of power and how it's contested, I think that that's a way in which they they really can engage into a certain topic really deeply. That's cool. There's a nice little text by Fuko with what's called what is critique. That's it. I use it for my students that are non maybe cultural studies students or whatever. And there's a nice little text that could be with Herald: Thank you. One more question from mic 2, please. Mic2: So thank you again. And I wanted to ask you, because I looked at the videos on the site and I see a lot of stories of single people and I'm quite surprised to find very little stories of communities and showcases of hacker spaces. And a lot of researchers I've spoke about are actually focusing on like how communities work. So was there any conscious decision that you want to tell singular people, singular person stories instead of like communities? Biella: First of all, it's a great piece of feedback because I mean, one of the things as an anthropologist that I've always loved about the hacker world is on the one hand, you know, people often talk about rights that are are tied to notions of individualism. But hacking is so collectivist. Right. I mean, look at the CCC. I mean, you can't have a better example of a kind of ritual, collective, effervescent experience, hacker spaces. Right. So I do think it's really important to try to showcase that. And we do, we do have videos around hacker spaces and they're being written up like the authors are writing about them now. But if that's not coming through the sites, we actually need to write. But it does show I mean, one of the problems with video and we and we will reflect on this is that on the one hand, while you could put a face to hacking, which is great. It's like it's not the hooded person video has its own limits. Right? Often it's an individual. It's often what journalists are interested in. And we also have to make sure that this isn't the whole of hacking and also at times use the video to tell a different story than what the video is showing. So I think that's a great comment. And we're going to keep that in mind because to me, the collectivist community, part of hacking. Is one of the most amazing parts that never makes it into kind of mainstream representation. Paula: That's right. Thank you. Herald: Thank you. Herald: Then we have a question from the Internet. First Internet. Biella: Internet. Tell us. Talk to us. Signal Angel: That question from the Internet is: when covering international scenes, scenes like Phrack magazine use as source material. Biella: Is Phrack magazine a source? Signal Angel: Yeah. Biella: Yeah. I mean, Phrack magazine. Remember the video that I showed around the fake French CCC? That is a larger project around how parts of the underground went pro and started doing security work. And Phrack is amazing. I mean, Phrack tells so much of that story. And what is also so interesting, because I've done like almost 26 interviews, in- depth interviews around on this. And like you'd expect in many hacker circles, there's a lot of diversity of opinions. And the one thing that people agree on was that like Phrack was awesome, technically. And it brought very different types of people together. You know, Phrack hasn't come up in the video because it's one of these things that hasn't been documented. Right? So much in documentaries or film. And again, it points to that problem, which is on the one hand, we're trying to show the faces of hacking. But we also have to make very, very clear, that there's certain parts of hacker history that don't exist in video and don't take this as the definitive sort of word or record. Herald: Now the question from microphone 2, please. Mic2: Hi, I'm... I was wondering, whether you plan to expand your categories. If I didn't miss anything to something for example as in my PhD. Examples of hacking connected with biology, genetics and digital fabrication, neuro-hacking and so on. Biella: Ja. Mic2.: So here that the CCC does a track dedicated to science that I think it's somehow related. Thanks. Biella: Great. Yeah. So if I can come correctly, I think we have 11 categories and we absolutely are expanding and like bio hacking is one that we want include because actually, you know, hackers are like creating insulin in the context of the United States, where insulin is ridiculously expensive, like some of the most important hacking I think is happening. So we're absolutely going to expand by a handful. We also don't want to go much more beyond 15 or 18. And one of the ways that we're also then handling that is that each entry comes with tags and then there's gonna be other groupings around tags. But it's certainly I mean, what you've seen is alive. It's alive, it's alive, but it's also very much beta, you know. Paula: And it and if you've written also on this topic and you have an interesting video, please email us, send it over. We'd be really interested to hear about your research. Yeah. Yeah. Herald: And then we have another question on mic 1, please. Mic1: Thank you. Thank you. My question is for Biella. And it's about would you say that your work be done on Anonymous affected the way you engage with working with video after going deep into seeing, how Anonymous uses video as a medium to engage with the public as compared to other activist groups who are way less successful in that? Biella: That's great. I mean, that is definitely, you know, I on the one hand always use video in my class. And it's not just like hackers. You know, if I'm talking about Martin Luther King and something he said, I will show a video of what he said. Because having me repeat it versus having MLK on the screen it's a lot more persuasive. And we are in a moment where truth is not winning the game and we have to think about our game of persuasion. Right? That's just this is a kind of side project. But you're absolutely right. It was also Anonymous who used so many videos. Right. In a period where, sure, others had to use videos. But it was groups like, for example, Indymedia who's turned 20 this year, who took videos of the world around us, whereas Anonymous created videos as a means for persuasion. And it was very powerful at the time. And I am... I am inspired to think about how can we think about persuasive mediums in all contexts in order to get our message out. Because again, we're not always winning in this regard. Truth can never speak on its own, right? And we always need adjuncts and adjuvants in order to get truth's message out there. And certainly it was Anonymous in part that that helped me see the importance of video and in a new way. So I'm really glad you mentioned that. Herald: Thank you. And then we have another question from the Internet. Signal-engel: Yeah, and the next question from the Internet is: how will you select the right curators for the entries and how do they decide how they are presented and contextualized? Biella: All right. So, I mean, I've been working on hacker cultures for since 1998. Paula: Mine is a journey has been a little bit shorter, but also for about 10 years or so. Biella: Yeah. And so I do, I know a lot of people working on different topics. And for the first round, we invited people. And it wasn't just academics. I have gotten journalists and hackers are writing some entries as well. But they're just like a little bit harder to kind of get them to turn in their entries. But hopefully they will, because, again, it's it's not just who's been credentialed to talk about a topic. It's who knows about a topic, who has something to say and who's willing to go through the editing process. Because while journalists generally don't have to go through multiple edits because you all just really know how to write for the public, everyone else actually does struggle a little bit. And we do really try to get the entries written in such a way where we're presuming, you know, nothing about hackers or the video. It's not always easy, then, to write an entry, that kind of starts from that that low level. And then in terms of the contextualization, that's where we have three editors and curators. And I would actually even say four because our final editor, Matt Gorson. He was an M.A. student under me. He's doing a big project on security, hacking with me at data and society. He knows a ton. And it's precisely having many eyeballs on one entry that allows us to hopefully contextualize it properly. But, you know, again, if something seems off, people should email us. And again, we're also open to responses from the community as well, which we have one response from Naomi. But, you know, perhaps that will kind of grow into something larger. Paula: So when you ask why or why is it us that are curating, who's curating, really, it's just the three of us that are doing this. And what kind of speech position are we coming from? I mean, we're anthropologists of hacker cultures. What does that mean? May for you guys, it doesn't mean much or it means a lot. Or it's really we've studied you guys for a long time. Biella: Yes. But it's it's also cool because it's like, well, except for Paula. I mean, Chris and I like we have tenure and that may mean nothing to you all. But, you know, hackers care about freedom and free speech and tenure allows you to be free. Puala: I have tenure now. Biella: Oh, you do? Sweet. We all are free to kind of do what we want in interesting ways. And again, we're trying to experiment with mediums that go a little bit beyond the academic journal, which I'm totally behind. I think there's really good things about the academic journal. I think there's really good things about the book. But we have the freedom to experiment with new mediums. And so hopefully this this new medium will kind of reach different types of publics in a way that kind of academic journal articles will never reach. Herald: Are there any more questions? Paula: Party. Party. Herald: It doesn't look like it. So I would like to invite you for another round of applause for Biella and Paula. Applause Biella und Paula: Thank you guys, thank you so much. 36C3 Postroll music Subtitles created by c3subtitles.de in the year 2020. Join, and help us!