"It Doesn't Have to Be This Way": Hacker Perspectives on Privacy

We face a lot of troubling times ahead with regards to surveillance. Most of the power, for the moment at least, remains in our hands and in our minds, should we choose to use them. It is our acceptance of the elements of a surveillance state which will give it the most strength and solidify its presence for future generations. It doesn't have to be this way. --Emmanuel Goldstein, Whole World's Watching (2008,5) IF A PERSON WERE TO ONLY CONSULT NEWS MEDIA, HE OR SHE WOULD GAIN THE impression that the world is constantly under threat of computer hackers eroding our technological infrastructure, national security, and--perhaps most immediately frightening to many--our personal privacy. Much attention has been directed toward hackers recently, in light of the numerous controversies surrounding the escapades of hacker groups like Anonymous and the disbanded Lulz Security/ LulzSec (Olson 2012); concerns over consumer financial security, as demonstrated in the occasion of the recent breach of credit card data at Target (Newman 2013); and a plethora of other hacking occurrences. (1) Perhaps now more than ever, hackers are perceived as a tremendous threat, to personal privacy. Scholars have spent a great deal of time examining public perceptions towards hackers (Halbert 1997; Holt 2009; Skibell 2002; Thomas 2005). Hacking, however, is often shrouded in a veil of social construction, perhaps as a result of the fact that the public has little direct contact with computer hackers, which makes their image particularly susceptible to shifts in public perception (Skibel 2002, 343; Hollinger 1991; Taylor 1999). In what has been termed the golden age of hacking, hackers were often perceived as ardent (if quirky) programmers, capable of brilliant, unorthodox feats of machine manipulation ... [whose] dedication bordered on fanaticism and [whose] living habits bordered on the unsavory (Nissenbaum 2004, 196). Currently, hackers are often portrayed as young men whose pathological addiction to the internet leads to elaborate deceptions, obsessive quests for knowledge, and bold tournaments of sinister computer break-ins (Coleman and Golub 2008,256). Although the term encompasses a much broader community than just those who commit network intrusions, almost any time a computer-related crime is committed, the media refer to the violator as a hacker (Holt 2009; Turgeman-Goldschmidt 2011). Thus, hackers have been constructed as some sort of digital malcontents capable of causing computerized chaos, including imposing on network privacy. Though certainly no one can argue that at least some hackers pose a threat to privacy, few seem to consider how hackers themselves view privacy and related issues. Hackers are often at the nexus of technology, politics, and control. Surveillance measures have proliferated in what has been referred to as a culture of control (Garland 2002), and demands for security through monitoring encroach on personal privacy--as most controversially demonstrated by recent events concerning the National Security Agency and their PRISM program. Examining hackers' perceptions of privacy may prove fruitful for future studies of hacker culture and behavior, because hackers are: (a) tremendously affected by increases in modern surveillance assemblages, which often encroach on domains hackers work in (computers, the Internet, etc.); (b) scrutinized heavily by media, government, and the public (Hollinger 1991; Skibell 2002; Turgeman-Goldschmidt 2011); and (c) often curious and interested in exploration (thus presenting a potential privacy threat to others) while also being vehement advocates of privacy themselves. As a step toward understanding these perceptions, the current study engages in a qualitative content analysis of 2600: The Hacker Quarterly. The magazine was created by Emmanuel Goldstein (pseudonym of Eric Corley, who adopted his name from the supposed enemy of the state in Orwell's 1984) and began publication in 1984. …