**************************************************************************** >C O M P U T E R U N D E R G R O U N D< >D I G E S T< *** Volume 1, Issue #1.11 (May 29, 1990) ** **************************************************************************** MODERATORS: Jim Thomas / Gordon Meyer REPLY TO: TK0JUT2@NIU.bitnet COMPUTER UNDERGROUND DIGEST is an open forum dedicated to sharing information among computerists and to the presentation and debate of diverse views. -------------------------------------------------------------------- DISCLAIMER: The views represented herein do not necessarily represent the views of the moderators. Contributors assume all responsibility for assuring that articles submitted do not violate copyright protections. -------------------------------------------------------------------- *************************************************************** *** Computer Underground Digest Issue #1.11 / File 2 of 4 *** *************************************************************** --------------------------- MEDIA AND THE (witch)HUNT FOR THE COMPUTER UNDERGROUND --------------------------- Witch hunts are about images and social control. There have been numerous discussions from both sides of the issue on the rhetoric depicting computer undergrounders as a DANGEROUS EVIL in the mass media. In our view, these depictions add to the "witch hunt" mentality by first labelling a group as dangerous, and then mobilizing enforcement agents to exorcise the alleged social evil. Being good sociology types, we call this process of naming a type of "degradation ceremony." A degradation ceremony is defined by Harold Garfinkel as a type of "communication work" in which someone's identity is publicly redefined and destroyed. This destruction then allows for the "forces of good" to denounce and attack those who are now seen as socially unacceptable. This is called SYMBOLIC transformation because those who are degraded are SYMBOLIZED in a new, and highly negative, way. Symbols are simply things that stand for, or indicate, something else. Words and names are examples of symbols that, when cleverly used, can created images of various kinds. For the computer underground, these images have been grossly distorted. By creating such negative imagery, it becomes easier to "sell" to the public the view that hackers, pirates, and others, are highly dangerous. Successful denunciations redefine the relationship between events or behaviors and their context through manipulation of symbols that provides new, derogatory meanings and creates moral distance between the perpetrator and the denouncer. The ritual ceremony of degradation symbolically redefines the computer underground and relegates them to a stigmatized--and criminally sanctionable--category. To save space, we have omitted the bibliography from which the following come, but it is available upon request. In an examination of the origins of a "crime wave" against the elderly, Fishman (1982) illustrates the media role in formatting common events in ways that impute to them an exaggerated regularity. The organization and selection of topics, the association of the events with dramatic discourse, the infusion of the events with new meanings, and subsequent self-reinforcing perpetuation of follow-up accounts organized around a given theme, belie the ideological character underlying the images. Hollinger and Lanza-Kaduce (1989) argue that the criminalization of computer abuse reflects a symbolic enterprise of education and socialization in extending new definitions of property and privacy in which the media played a dominant role. Media definitions of the CU continue to invoke the inaccurate and generalized metaphors of "conspiracies" and "criminal rings," (e.g., Camper, 1989; Zablit, 1989), "modem macho" evil-doers (Bloombecker, 1988), moral bankruptcy (E. Schwartz, 1988), "electronic trespassers" (Parker: 1983) or "electronic burglars" (Rosenblatt, 1989a: 1), "crazy kids dedicated to making mischief" (Sandza, 1984a: 17), "electronic vandals" (Bequai: 1987), a new or global "threat" (Markoff, 1990; Van, 1989). Others see hackers as saboteurs ("Computer Saboteur," 1988), monsters (Stoll, 1989: 323), secret societies of criminals (WMAQ, 1990), "Hi-tech street gangs" (Cook, 1988), "'malevolent, nasty, evil-doers' who 'fill the screens of amateur %computer% users with pornography'" (Minister of Parliament Emma Nicholson, cited in "Civil Liberties," 1990: 27), "varmits" and "bastards" (Stoll, 1989: 257), and "high-tech street gangs" ("Hacker, 18," 1989). Stoll (cited in J. Schwartz, 1990: 50) has even compared them to persons who put razorblades in the sand at beaches, a dramatic, but hardly accurate, analogy. A National Inquirer /(June 11, 1985: 28) reprint circulates on BBSs claiming that several hackers fraudulently ran up a phone bill of $175,000 to a woman in one billing period. While it is true telephone abuses may incur heavy costs, such dramatization illustrates the sensationalism of media depictions. It is unthinkable that a phone company would not notice such heavy activity on a private line. Further, it would require over two dozen callers calling 24 hours a day for 31 days to generate such a bill, and repeated attempts by BBSers to verify the story or locate the principles were unsuccessful. Once the degradation occurs, those degraded are more readily persecuted, and the persecution often assumes the character of a political witch hunt. By a witch hunt, we mean a form of repressive control and a ritualistic mobilization of the community in search of imaginary enemies: Political witch hunts are the ritual mechanisms that transform individuals, groups, organizations or cultural artifacts from things of this world into actors within a mythical universe. These rituals are the social "hooks" that keep sacred transcendent forces present in the lives of ordinary people and relevant for everyday institutional transactions (Berkeson, 1977: 223). Witch hunts possess a mythical and ritualistic character and, like all moral crusades, they function in part to symbolize somebodies view of a sacred order against the penetration of "profane" influences in a process of moral revitalization. The current sweeps against the CU can be seen as part of a broader fear of change and the reaction to it by returning to "old fashioned values." Other examples of this tendency toward enforcing the moral order through the criminal justice system include persecution of those showing the Robert Maplethorpe art exhibit, the prosecution of a female "adulteress" in Wisconsin, proposed laws against drinking that would make it a felony for a parent to serve their 20 year old offspring a drink in the privacy of their own home (in Illinois), the clients of prostitutes in Wisconsin potentially liable to face confiscation of their vehicle if they invite the prostitute into their car. . .the list goes on. The public in general does not understand computer technology and tends to rely on "experts" to identify villains. The media portrayal of the CU as "evil" not only degrades, but dangerously stigmatizes. Our point is that, under current law enforcement policies, the CU is being hunted not for the crimes it has committed for for the symbols participants bear. =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ + END THIS FILE + +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+===+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=  Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253 12yrs+