The Baudy World of the Byte Bandit-A Postmodernist Interpreta, Komputer, More Hacking
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THE BAUDY WORLD OF THE BYTE BANDIT:A POSTMODERNIST INTERPRETATION OF THE COMPUTER UNDERGROUNDGordon Meyer and Jim ThomasDepartment of SociologyNorthern Illinois UniversityDeKalb, IL 60115(10 June, 1990)Forthcoming in In F. Schmalleger (ed.), Computers in CriminalJustice, Bristol (Ind.): Wyndham Hall. An earlier version ofthis paper was presented at the American Society of Criminologyannual meetings, Reno (November 9, 1989). Authors are listed inalphabetical order. Address correspondence to Jim Thomas.We are indebted to the numerous anonymous computer undergroundparticipants who provided information. Special acknowledgementgoes to Hatchet Molly, Jedi, The Mentor, Knight Lightning, andTaran King.THE BAUDY WORLD OF THE BYTE BANDIT:A POSTMODERNIST INTERPRETATION OF THE COMPUTER UNDERGROUNDHackers are "nothing more than high-tech street gangs"(Federal Prosecutor, Chicago).Transgression is not immoral. Quite to the contrary, itreconciles the law with what it forbids; it is the dia-lectical game of good and evil (Baudrillard, 1987: 81).There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There'sjust stuff people do. It's all part of the nice, butthat's as far as any man got a right to say (Steinbeck,1939:31-32).The criminalization of "deviant acts" transforms and reducesbroader social meanings to legal ones. Once a category of behav-iors has become defined by statute as sanctionably deviant, thebehaviors so-defined assume a new set of meanings that may ob-scure ones possessed by those who engage in such behaviors."Computer deviants" provide one example.The proliferation of computer technology has been accompa-nied by the growth of a computer underground (CU), often mistak-enly labeled "hackers," that is perceived as criminally deviantby the media, law enforcement officials, and researchers. Draw-ing from ethnographic data, we offer a cultural rather than acriminological analysis of the underground by suggesting that theCU reflects an attempt to recast, re-appropriate, and reconstructthe power-knowledge relationship that increasingly dominates the- 1 -ideology and actions of modern society. Our data reveal the com-puter underground as an invisible community with a complex andinterconnected cultural lifestyle, an inchoate anti-authoritarianpolitical consciousness, and dependent on norms of reciprocity,sophisticated socialization rituals, networks of informationsharing, and an explicit value system. We interpret the CU cul-ture as a challenge to and parody of conventional culture, as aplayful attempt to reject the seriousness of technocracy, and asan ironic substitution of rational technological control of thepresent for an anarchic and playful future.Stigmatizing the Computer UndergroundThe computer underground refers to persons engaged in one ormore of several activities, including pirating, anarchy, hacking,and phreaking[1]. Because computer underground participantsfreely share information and often are involved collectively in asingle incident, media definitions invoke the generalized meta-phors of "conspiracies" and "criminal rings," (e.g., Camper,1989; Computer Hacker Ring, 1990; Zablit, 1989), "modem macho"evil-doers (Bloombecker, 1988), moral bankruptcy (E. Schwartz,1988), "electronic trespassers" (Parker: 1983), "crazy kids dedi-cated to making mischief" (Sandza, 1984a: 17), "electronic van-dals" (Bequai: 1987), a new or global "threat" (Markoff, 1990a;Van, 1989), saboteurs ("Computer Sabateur," 1988), monsters(Stoll, 1989: 323), secret societies of criminals (WMAQ, 1990),"'malevolent, nasty, evil-doers' who 'fill the screens of amateur{computer} users with pornography'" (Minister of Parliament Emma- 2 -Nicholson, cited in "Civil Liberties," 1990: 27), "varmints" and"bastards" (Stoll, 1989: 257), and "high-tech street gangs"("Hacker, 18," 1989). Stoll (cited in J. Schwartz, 1990: 50) haseven compared them to persons who put razorblades in the sand atbeaches, a bloody, but hardly accurate, analogy. Most dramaticis Rosenblatt's (1990: 37) attempt to link hackers to pedophiliaand "snuff films," a ploy clearly designed to inflame rather thaneducate.These images have prompted calls for community and law en-forcement vigilance (Conly and McEwen, 1990: 2; Conly, 1989;McEwen, 1989). and for application of the Racketeer Influencedand Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act to prosecute and control the"criminals" (Cooley, 1984), which have created considerable con-cern for civil liberties (Markoff, 1990b; J. Schwartz, 1990).Such exaggerated discourse also fails to distinguish between un-derground "hobbyists," who may infringe on legal norms but haveno intention of pillaging, from felonious predators, who usetechnology to loot[2]. Such terminology creates a common stockof public knowledge that formats interpretations of CU activityin ways pre-patterned as requiring social control to protect thecommonweal (e.g., Altheide, 1985).As Hollinger and Lanza-Kaduce (1988: 119), Kane (1989), andPfuhl (1987) observed, the stigmatization of hackers has emergedprimarily through value-laden media depictions. When in 1988 aCornell University graduate student inadvertently infected an in-ternational computer network by planting a self-reproducing "vi-- 3 -rus," or "rogue program," the news media followed the story withconsiderable detail about the dangers of computer abuse (e.g.,Allman, 1990; Winter, 1988). Five years earlier, in May of 1983,a group of hackers known as "The 414's" received equal media at-tention when they broke into the computer system of the SloanKettering Cancer research center. Between these dramatic and a-typical events, the media have dramatized the dangers of computerrenegades, and media anecdotes presented during Congressionallegislative debates to curtail "computer abuse" dramatized the"computer hacking problem" (Hollinger and Lanza-Kaduce, 1988:107). Although the accuracy and objectivity of the evidence hassince been challenged (Hollinger and Lanza-Kaduce 1988: 105), themedia continue to format CU activity by suggesting that any com-puter-related felony can be attributed to hacking. Additionally,media stories are taken from the accounts of police blotters, se-curity personnel, and apprehended hackers, each of whom have dif-ferent perspectives and definitions. This creates a self-rein-forcing imagery in which extreme examples and cursivelycirculated data are discretely adduced to substantiate the claimof criminality by those with a vested interest in creating andmaintaining such definitions. For example, Conly and McEwen(1990) list examples of law enforcement jurisdictions in whichspecial units to fight "computer crime," very broadly defined,have been created. These broad definitions serve to expand thescope of authority and resources of the units. Nonetheless, de-spite criminalization, there is little evidence to support the- 4 -contention that computer hacking has been sufficiently abusive orpervasive to warrant zealous prosecution (Michalowski and Pfuhl,forthcoming).As an antidote to the conventional meanings of CU activityas simply one of deviance, we shift the social meaning of CU be-havior from one of stigma to one of culture creation and meaning.Our work is tentative, in part because of the lack of previoussubstantive literature and in part because of the complexity ofthe data, which indicate a multiplicity of subcultures within theCU. This paper examines two distinct CU subcultures, phreaks andhackers, and challenges the Manichean view that hackers can beunderstood simply as profaners of a sacred moral and economic or-der.The Computer Underground and PostmodernismThe computer underground is a culture of persons who callcomputer bulletin board systems (BBSs, or just "boards"), andshare the interests fostered by the BBS. In conceptualizing thecomputer underground as a distinct culture, we draw from Geertz's...
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