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Short abstract:

This talk will mobilize the concept of 'metis' to characterize the peculiar intelligence and technical practice of hackers, who find surprising sources of flexibility in systems and situations where others see patterns and rigidity.

Long abstract:

The concept of 'metis' offers an especially effective means of characterizing the intelligence and technical practice of hackers. Metis, for the ancient Greeks, denoted the improvisational craftiness of a figure like Odysseus, whose intuitive understanding of the regularities in a particular system or situation facilitates acts of subversive cleverness. After all, it was Odysseus who devised the Trojan Horse, perhaps the first hack recorded in Western literature, and later the namesake of an actual variety of malware. This is a revealing affinity, and the connections between metis and hacking run deep. Metis is an especially useful concept for understanding hackers because it is a form of practical knowledge distinct from episteme and techne. Whereas episteme denotes the pursuit of factual regularities in the natural world, and techne implies the application of episteme for engineering, craft, and material production, both episteme and techne are inherently systematic. In contrast, the essential characteristic of metis is its subversion of systems and regularities, finding surprising sources of flexibility where others see only patterns and rigidity. To view hackers through the lens of metis also helps explain why hacking thrives in settings characterized by what James C. Scott calls "seeing like a state," that is, where an excessively schematic reduction of a system's natural complexity leads to the concealment of idiosyncrasies that become ideal sites for a hacker's exploitation. Developing an account of metis offers a new framework to explain why hackers thrive in infrapolitical practices that are inherently opposed to seeing like a state.

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Short abstract:

The “Empowering Hacks” project offers a case to discuss the distinction between “Making” and “Hacking” in the Hacker Cultures podcasts. Disability was used as an opportunity to reimagine practices and challenge ableist assumptions.

Long abstract:

Despite its promises of technology democratization, the Maker Movement still lacks diversity. To address this disparity, we might deliberately turn to „unexpected users“ of maker tools and reimagine core hacker values for subversive practices together with them.

This proposal is about hacking the ways in which Making is usually imagined to be performed. It offers reflections on the “Empowering Hacks” project, my long-term collaboration with two men with disabilities on fabricating their own ideas. Our project began with the mission “to produce disabled tools at a cheaper rate but with a more customisable outcome” and so we collaborated on designing, modelling and 3D-printing “wheelchair golfballs” and other assistive gadgets. Externally, “Empowering Hacks” was motivated by creating positive change for others. Internally, our processes of mentoring and production were configured around the interests and social roles of my collaborators. Disability was not perceived as an impediment but as an opportunity to reimagining Making practices.

My reflections are rooted in a key distinction between “Hacking” and “Making”. While Making encompasses a wide range of practices using digital fabrication tools, Hacking denotes self-directed technological action for chosen purposes. In “Empowering Hacks”, my collaborators did not identify as makers, however as makers-in-the-making they had freedom to figure out their own ways to make. Their hacking became a performative and material challenge to ableist assumptions about disabled people not being able to be designers or creators. The dialectic podcast would be an opportunity to further unpack the subversive capacities of reimagining making through hacking.

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Short abstract:

This paper suggests a shift from information security as a matter of war to security as matter of care. It explores values that steer the community towards careful and dedicated maintenance practices through an ethnographic case study focused on an old crypto protocol called Pretty Good Privacy.

Long abstract:

This paper suggests a shift from information security as a matter of war to security as matter of care. Based on my 6-year long PhD research among a community of open source hackers and developers maintaining a crypto protocol, this paper deconstructs what I call the “warlike crypto imaginary” that often represents cryptography as a fascinating totem pole in the form of a blue lock. This paper tackles the rhetoric of war and violence that shapes our binary understanding of information security and proposes the work of making and unmaking security as a question of care, collaboration and negotiations. In other words, rather than portraying hackers and security experts as lonely teenagers wearing hoodies and deemed to break things, brute force passwords, and penetrate systems, this paper looks at how security people keep collaborating one with another to fixing things that never cease to break.

Inspired by the feminist STS field, I look for a “different voice” (Gilligan, 1982) through an ethnographic case study focused on the maintenance of an old crypto protocol called Pretty Good Privacy (PGP). PGP was developed in 1991 by an antinuclear activist to protect emails from being spied on. Since then, and despite many controversies, different generations of coders have been maintaining this piece of technology for more than three decades. Their persistent, engaged and humble tinkering let me identify values that steer the community towards careful and dedicated practices of maintenance, long-term collaborations, negotiations of compromises, and affective attachment to the technology.

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Short abstract:

The Tor Project is one of the most (in-)famous anonymization networks, providing privacy online. It is made up of 6,000+ volunteer-run nodes called “relays”. Who are those volunteers and what are their motivations? Our study mixed surveys and interviews to find out more about the people behind Tor.

Long abstract:

Tor (acronym for The Onion Router) is one of the most famous projects focusing on online privacy and anonymity.

Using the Tor Browser, one can access clear net websites without being tracked or traced or so-called "onion services (formerly hidden services)," which can only be accessed via the Tor network. Nowadays widely known for darknet marketplaces, it is also used by journalists, human rights and digital activists, spies, hackers, and ordinary people to circumvent state surveillance, internet blockades and to stay anonymous.

Originating from military research, the Tor Project is non-profit and open source after being taken over by hacktivists in the in the early 00s. Today the network has 6,000+ volunteer-run nodes called "relays." When the network began, relay operators were friends, colleagues, and collaborators of the original Tor developers. Over the years, grown beyond trusted/known collaborators to thousands of people and organizations, many of whom the Tor Project does not know. This has led both to a more diverse and hence resilient network, but it also made it easier for malicious actors to join.

Who are the volunteers behind the network and what motivates them? Very little research has been conducted so far focusing on Tor relay operators. We conducted two surveys and 20 interviews to find out more about demographics, privacy values, trust, network health and community.