Computer underground Digest Sun July 27, 1997 Volume 9 : Issue 59 ISSN 1004-042X Editor: Jim Thomas (cudigest@sun.soci.niu.edu) News Editor: Gordon Meyer (gmeyer@sun.soci.niu.edu) Archivist: Brendan Kehoe Shadow Master: Stanton McCandlish Shadow-Archivists: Dan Carosone / Paul Southworth Ralph Sims / Jyrki Kuoppala Ian Dickinson Field Agent Extraordinaire: David Smith Cu Digest Homepage: http://www.soci.niu.edu/~cudigest CONTENTS, #9.59 (Sun, July 27, 1997) File 1--Chapter 6 of P. Taylor's book - "Them and Us" (part 2 of 2) File 2--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 7 May, 1997) CuD ADMINISTRATIVE, EDITORIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION APPEARS IN THE CONCLUDING FILE AT THE END OF EACH ISSUE. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 18 Jun 97 17:25 From: P.A.Taylor@sociology.salford.ac.uk Subject: File 1--Preview of "Hacker" book: THEM AND US (part 2 of 2) ((MODERATORS' NOTE: This is Part two (of 2) of CuD 9.59, the conclusion of Paul Taylor's chapter from his forthcoming hacker book)). ------ 6.6 BOUNDARY FORMATION PROCESS AND THE USE OF ANALOGIES The previous sections of this chapter have established that the ethical issues surrounding computer usage are both complex and liable to fundamentally contrasting interpretations by the members of the CSI and the CU. The debate that subsequently occurs between the two groups has been shown as part of a boundary forming process by means of which both groups reinforce their own identities. This section analyses the way in which analogies are used within this process as both explanatory tools with which to examine some of the issues in the ethical debate over hacking, and also as a method of conveying the strength of opinion that is held. The role of physical analogies in the ethical debate over security issues has already been illustrated with the CSI's use of them to express fears of the anonymous nature of the threat hackers pose. The general ease with which physical analogies are used and the strength of feeling behind them is vividly illustrated by Jerry Carlin's response to the question, ''Have system breakers become the 'whipping boys' for general commercial irresponsibility with regard to data security?" He replied, "It's fashionable to blame the victim for the crime but if someone is raped it is not OK to blame that person for not doing a better job in fending off the attack!" (Carlin: e-mail interview) Sherizen was one of the few interviewees to refrain from using analogies in his discussion of hacking, contending that: Usually, arguing by analogy is a very weak argument. When it comes to discussing the law, non-lawyers often try to approach arguments this way. I don't think that we can go very far to determine appropriate behaviours if we rely upon analogies. What we need to develop are some social definitions of acceptable behaviour and then to structure "old law for new technologies." The physical analogies may help to score points in a debate but they are not helpful here at all (Sherizen e-mail interview). The grey and indeterminate ethical quality of computing makes it difficult to establish such a code of 'acceptable behaviour', and it is in an attempt to do so that physical analogies are used. Goldstein (editor of Hacking magazine 'Phrack') explores the ethical implications of hacking by questioning the use of an analogy that likens hacking to trespass: Some will say ... 'accessing a computer is far more sensitive than walking into an unlocked office building.' If that is the case, why is it still so easy to do? If it's possible for somebody to easily gain unauthorised access to a computer that has information about me, I would like to know about it. But somehow I don't think the company or agency running the system would tell me that they have gaping security holes. Hackers, on the other hand, are very open about what they discover which is why large corporations hate them so much (Goldstein 1993). The moral debate about hacking makes frequent use of such physical analogies of 'theft' and 'trespass'. The choice of the physical analogy reflecting the initial ethical position of the discussant and will be biased towards the point that the discussant is attempting to establish, and hence certain emotive images such as rape and burglary are repeatedly used. (i) Property issues Members of the CSI tend to emphasise the authorisation and access rights criteria relating to information. Such criteria are held to be fundamental to an ethical outlook on computing issues because of they stem from the basic belief that information and computer systems are the sole property of their owners, in the same way that property rights exist in material objects. Physical analogies become a means to restrict the computer security debate: "to questions about privacy, property, possessive individualism, and at best, the excesses of state surveillance, while it closes off any examination of the activities of the corporate owners and institutional sponsors of information technology (the most prized 'target' of most hackers)." (Ross 1990: 83). This is a rather partisan interpretation of the role analogies play in the socially shaping boundary formation occurring within computing. A less controversial assessment, would be that in contrast to the CU, the CSI emphasises the property rights of system owners with its use of analogies that are often dramatic and vivid: "As far as the raison d'=88tre for attackers, it is no more a valid justification to attack systems because they are vulnerable than it is valid to beat up babies because they can't defend themselves. If you are going to demonstrate a weakness, you must do it with the permission of the systems administrators and with a great deal of care" (Cohen: e-mail interview). The difficulty faced with analogies that seek to emphasise the way in which hacking tends to transgress property rights, centres upon what we have already seen as the increasingly immaterial aspects of information and which is also shown in Chapter 7 to create various problems for drafting effective computer misuse legislation: "copyability is INHERENT in electronic media. You can xerox a book but not very well and you don't get a nice binding and cover. Electronic media, video tape, computer discs etc., do not have this limitation. Since the ability to copy is within the nature of the media, it seems silly to try to prevent it" (Mercury: e-mail interview). Software copying is an example of how duplication within computing is inherently more easy than with physical commodities: copyability is intrinsic to the medium itself. For example, Maelstrom contends that he: "can't remember a single analogy that works. Theft is taking something else that belongs to someone without his/her permission. When you pirate you don't steal, you copy" (Maelstrom: e-mail interview). Similarly, in the case of cracking: In absolutely no case can the physical analogies of 'theft' and 'trespassing' be applied in the matter of computer system 'cracking'. Computers are a reservoir for information expressed in bits of zeroes and ones. Homes and property have things far more intrinsically valuable to harbour. Information protected properly whilst residing on a system is not at issue for 'theft'. Encryption should have been a standard feature to begin with and truly confidential information should not be accessible in any manner via a remote means (Tester: e-mail interview). (ii) Analogies - breaking and entering In order to emphasise the potential harm threatened to systems by anonymous intruders the physical analogies used tend to concentrate upon the fear and sense of violation that tend to accompany burglaries. The dispute between the CSI and the CU as to whether it is ethical to break into systems is most often conducted with reference to the analogy of breaking and entering into a building. Because of the divergence between the real world and cyberspace, however, even such a simple analogy is open to varying interpretations: "My analogy is walking into an office building, asking a secretary which way it is to the records room, and making some Xerox copies of them. Far different than breaking and entering someone's home" (Cohen: e-mail interview). Cosell presents the following scenario with which he attempts to frame the ethical issues surrounding hacking: Consider: it is the middle of summer and you happen to be climbing in the mountains and see a pack of teenagers roaming around an abandoned-until-snow ski resort. There is no question of physical harm to a person, since there will be no people around for months. They are methodically searching EVERY truck, building, outbuilding, shed etc., trying EVERY window, trying to pick EVERY lock. When they find something they can open, they wander into it, and emerge a while later. From your vantage point, you can see no actual evidence of any theft or vandalism, but then you can't actually see what they're doing while they're inside whatever-it-is (Cosell: CuD 3:12 April 1991). From this scenario, various questions arise, such as: do you call the Police? what would the intruders be charged with? and would your response be different if you were the owner of the resort? Someone more sympathetic to the hacker point of view illustrated the fundamentally different way in which the two groups, CSI and CU, conceptualise the ethical issues and the corresponding use of physical analogies. He responded that: Of course you should call the cops. Unless they are authorised to be on the property, (by the owner) they are trespassing, and in the case of picking locks, breaking and entering. However, you're trying to equate breaking into a ski resort with breaking into a computer system. The difference being: 99 times out of 100, the people breaking into a computer system only want to learn, have forgotten a password, etc. ... 99 times out of 100, the people breaking into the ski resort are out for free shit (Rob Heins CuD 3:13). The CU accuse the CSI of preferring to use physical analogies in order to marginalise a group, rather than make use of their information for improving the security of systems: When you refer to hacking as 'burglary and theft' ... it becomes easy to think of these people as hardened criminals. But it's just not the case. I don't know any burglars or thieves, yet I hang out with an awful lot of hackers. It serves a definite purpose to blur the distinction, just as pro-democracy demonstrators are referred to as rioters by nervous political leaders. Those who have staked a claim in the industry fear that the hackers will reveal vulnerabilities in their systems that they would just as soon forget about (Emmanuel Goldstein: CuD 1:13). This is one explanation of why, if physical analogies are inevitably only crude analytical approximations and rhetorical devices with which to conceptualise computing issues, they are frequently used by the CSI in their discourse. Johnson argues in response to the claim that hackers serve a useful purpose by pointing out security faults that: If a policeman walks down the street testing doors to see if they are locked, that's within his 'charter'- both ethically and legally. If one is open, he is within the same 'charter' to investigate - to see if someone else is trespassing. However, it's not in his 'charter' to go inside and snoop through my personal belongings, nor to hunt for illegal materials such as firearms or drugs ... If I come home and find the policeman in my house, I can pretty well assume he's doing me a favour because he found my door unlocked. However, if a self-appointed 'neighbourhood watch' monitor decides to walk down the street checking doorknobs, he's probably overstepped his 'charter'. If he finds my door unlocked and enters the house, he's trespassing ... Life is complicated enough without self-appointed watchdogs and messiahs trying to 'make my life safe (Bob Johnson: e-mail interview). Thus, hackers are seen to have no 'charter' which justifies their incursions into other peoples' systems, such incursions being labelled as trespass. Even comparisons to trespass, however, tend to be too limited for those wishing to identify and label hacking as an immoral act. Trespass is a civil and not a criminal offence. Onderwater, makes this distinction with his particular use of analogies: "Trespassing means in Holland if somebody leaves the door open and the guy goes in, stands in the living room, crosses his arms and doesn't do anything." In contrast, hacking involves the active overcoming of any security measures put before hackers, Onderwater sees it as more analagous to the situation whereby: you find somebody in your house and he is looking through your clothes in your sleeping room, and you say 'what are you doing?' and he says 'well, I was walking at the back of the garden and I saw that if I could get onto the shed of your neighbour, there was a possibility to get onto the gutter, and could get to your bathroom window, get it open, that was a mistake from you, so I'd like to warn you ... You wouldn't see that as trespassing, you would see that as breaking and entering, which it is and I think it's the same with hacking (Onderwater: Hague interview). (iii) Rejection of breaking and entering analogies - hackers use of physical analogies: chess vs breaking and entering Gongrijp's description of the motives lying behind hacking was typical of the hackers I met. He concentrated on the intellectual stimulation it affords as opposed to any desire just to trespass onto computer systems . He emphasised the chess-like qualities of computer security, and was at pains to reject any analogies that might compare hacking to physical breaking and entering. Gongrijp contended that: Computer security is like a chess-game, and all these people that say breaking into my computer systems is like breaking into my house: bull-shit, because securing your house is a very simple thing, you just put locks on the doors and bars on the windows and then only brute force can get into your house, like smashing a window. But a computer has a hundred thousand intricate ways to get in, and it's a chess game with the people that secure a computer... it's their job to make the new release of their Unix system more secure, and it's the job of the hackers to break in (Gongrijp: Amsterdam interview). Goggans turns the burglar analogy on its head when he argues that: People just can't seem to grasp the fact that a group of 20 year old kids just might know a little more than they do, and rather than make good use of us, they would rather just lock us away and keep on letting things pass them by ... you can't stop burglars from robbing you when you leave the doors open, but lock up the people who can close them for you, another burglar will just walk right in (Goggans 1990). The implication of these combined views, is that the analogy comparing hacking with burglary fails because the real world barriers employed to deter burglars are not used in the virtual world of computing. Such preventative measures are either not used at all, or are of a qualitatively different kind to the 'doors' and 'locks' that can be used in computing. Such barriers can be overcome by technologically knowledgeable young people, without violence or physical force of any kind. The overcoming of such barriers, has a non-violent and intellectual quality that is not apparent in more conventional forms of burglary, and which therefore throws into question the whole suitability of such analogies. (iv) Problems of using physical analogies as explanatory tools The following excerpt is a newspaper editorial response to the acquittal of Paul Bedworth case. It compares computer addiction to a physical addiction for drugs: This must surely be a perverse verdict ... Far from being unusual in staying up half the night, Mr Bedworth was just doing what his fellows have done for years. Scores of universities and private companies could each produce a dozen software nerds as dedicated as he ... Few juries in drug cases look so indulgently on the mixture of youth and addiction (Ind 18.3.93: editorial p. 25). This editorial emphasises how such analogies are utilised in an attempt to formulate ethical responses to an activity of ambiguous ethical content. As Goldstein pointed out, it becomes easier to attribute malign intent, if using such analogies succeeds in making a convincing comparison between hacking and an activity the public are more readily inclined to construe as a malicious activity. The adaptability of this technique is shown by the way the editorial continues to utilise a physical analogy in order to elicit critical responses, this time against the victims of the previously maligned hacker: "Leaving those passwords unchanged is like leaving the chief executive's filing cabinet un-locked. Organisations that do so can expect little public sympathy when their innermost secrets are brought into public view." The main reason why physical analogies tend not to succeed in any attempted project of stigmatisation/'ethicalisation' of hacking events is the difficulty of convincing people that events that transpire in virtual reality are in fact comparable and equivalent to criminal acts in the physical world. We have seen for example the weaknesses of breaking and entering analogies. They flounder upon the fact that hacking intrusions do not contain the same threats of transgression of personal physical space and therefore a direct and actual physical threat to an individual. With the complete absence of such a threat, hacking activity will primarily remain viewed as an intellectual exercise and show of bravado rather than a criminal act, even if, on occasion, direct physical harm may be an indirect result of the technical interference caused by hacking. Thus the use of analogies is fraught with problems of equivalence. Whilst they may be useful as a rough comparison between the real and virtual worlds, the innate but sometimes subtle, practical and ethical differences between the two worlds mean that analogies cannot be relied upon as a complete explanatory tool in seeking to understand the practical and ethical implications of computing: They simply don't map well and can create models which are subtly and profoundly misleading. For example, when we think of theft in the physical world, we are thinking of an act in which I might achieve possession of an object only by removing it from yours. If I steal your horse, you can't ride. With information, I can copy your software or data and leave the copy in your possession entirely unaltered (Barlow: e-mail interview). Information processed by computers is such that previous concepts of scarcity break down when correspondence is sought between the real and virtual worlds. It is not just conceptions of scarcity that are affected, however, the extent to which information correlates with the real world is questionable at the most fundamental levels: Physical (and biological) analogies often are misleading as they appeal to an understanding from an area in which different laws hold. Informatics has often mislead naive people by choosing terms such as 'intelligent' or 'virus' though IT systems may not be compared to the human brain ... Many users (and even 'experts') think of a password as a 'key' despite the fact that you can easily 'guess' the password while it is difficult to do the equivalent for a key (Brunnstein: e-mail interview). Physical analogies are inevitably flawed in the respect that they can only ever be used as an approximation of what occurs in 'cyberspace' in order to relate it to the everyday physical world. Thus they attempt to evaluate and understand computing activities using a more natural and comfortable frame of reference. Hence the language is often used by the CSI to describe computer attacks, and a security breach of the academic network with the acronym JANET, was referred to as the 'rape of JANET'. Spafford admitted to having one of his systems hacked into at least three times, he argued that he: "didn't learn anything in particular that I didn't know before. I felt quite violated by the whole thing, and did not view anything positive from it."(Spafford US interview [Emphasis mine]). The CU stresses the differences between the virtual and real worlds and contends that the use of physical language in such a situation is not warranted. For example, despite such use of the language of physicality, it is difficult to conceive of a computer intrusion that could be as traumatising as the actual bodily violation of a rape. A second, diametrically opposed, reason for questioning the validity of physical analogies would be that instead of overstating situations within computing, analogies used to describe a computer intrusion actually understate the harm caused by the intrusion due to the generic aspects of hacking identified earlier. In John Perry Barlow's "Crime and Puzzlement" recourse is made to the metaphors comparing hackers with cowboys from the nineteenth century USA. This specific comparison of hackers with cowboys illustrates some of the problems associated with the use of metaphors. The basis of this metaphor rests upon the view of hackers as pioneers in the new field of computing, just as cowboys were portrayed as pioneers of the 'Wild West'. Such a metaphor, in addition to the above discussion of the applicability of the concepts of trespass and theft to the world of computing, provides a useful example of both the suitability and limitations of analogies in discussions of hacking. Commentators tend to 'customise' common metaphors used in the computer security debate, in order to derive from the metaphor the particular emphasis desired to further the point being argued: Much of what we 'know' about cowboys is a mixture of myth, unsubstantiated glorification of 'independent he-men', Hollywood creations, and story elements that contain many racist and sexist perspectives. I doubt that cracker/hackers are either like the mythic cowboy or the 'true' cowboy ... I think we should move away from the easy-but-inadequate analogy of the cowboy to other, more experienced-based discussions (Sherizen: e-mail interview). The tendency to use the 'easy-but-inadequate analogy' applies significantly to the orginator of the cowboy metaphor himself. Thus, when I asked John Perry Barlow his views as to the accuracy of the metaphor, he replied: "Given that I was the first person to use that metaphor, you're probably asking the wrong guy. Or maybe not, inasmuch as I'm now more inclined to view crackers as aboriginal natives rather than cowboys. Certainly, they have an Indian view of property" (Barlow: e-mail interview). More negative responses to the comparison of hackers with cowboys came from the hackers themselves: WHO is the electronic cowboy ... the electronic farmer, the electronic saloon keeper? ... I am not sold. I offer no alternative, either. I wait for hacking to evolve its own culture, its own stereotypes. There was a T.V. show long ago, 'Have Gun Will Travel' about a gunslinger called 'Palladin'. The knightly metaphor ... but not one that was widely accepted. Cowboys acted like cowboys, not knights, or Greeks, or cavemen. Hackers are hackers not cowboys (Marotta: e-mail interview). 6.7 THE PROJECT OF PROFESSIONALISATION 6.7.1 Creation of the computer security market and professional ethos The creation of the 'them and us' situation forms part of the process whereby a professional status opposed to the hacking culture and ethic is established. Examples have already been seen of the lack of cooperation that exists between the CSI and the CU in Chapter 5, it gave various reasons for the CSI not being able to trust hackers sufficiently enough for cooperation to be feasible. The antagonism that exists between the CSI and the CU contributes to a process of boundary formation, but there is also the widely-held belief that, along with legitimate reasons for differentiation between the two groups, there is also an element of manufactured difference. Below are two examples, one from the commercial sector, and one from the CU, of people who believe parts of the CSI are involved in creating a market niche for themselves from which it then becomes necessary to exclude hackers: Computer security industry' sounds like some high-priced consultants to me. Most of what they do could be summarised in a two-page leaflet - and its common sense anyway. A consultant - particularly in the U.S. - spends 3/4ths of his or her effort justifying the fee (Barrie Bates: e-mail interview). These virus programs are about to make me sick! In two years of heavily downloading from BBSs, I've yet to catch a virus from one. Peter Norton should be drug to a field and shot! McAffe too (Eric Hunt: e-mail interview). The veracity of opinions such as those above may be difficult to separate from their origin in the antagonism that exists between the CSI and the CU, but allegations that 'viral hype' has been used as a means of helping to create a computer security market come from security practitioners themselves: It's very hard getting facts on this because the media hype is used as a trigger by people who are trying to sell anti-virus devices, programs, scanners, whatever. This is put about very largely by companies who are interested in the market and they try to stimulate the market by putting the fear of God into people in order to sell their products, but selling them on the back of fear rather than constructive benefits, because most of the products in the industry are sold on constructive benefits. You always sell the benefit first, this is selling it on the back of fear which is rather different, "you'd better use our products or else" (Taylor: Knutsford interview). The whole process of enforcing and furthering the proprietary attitude to information outlined in Chapter 3 is further strengthened by a new language of physicality resulting from the advent of computer viruses10. Software is infected, and systems are spoken of in terms of being repeatedly 'raped'. Computer viruses are described in terms similar to those employed in discussions of the dangers of promiscuous sex. Prophylactic safety measures are seen to be necessary to protect the moral majority from 'unprotected contact' with the degeneracy of a minority group. Ross argues that 'viral hysteria' has been deliberately used by the software industry to increase its market sales: software vendors are now profiting from the new public distrust of program copies ... the effects of the viruses have been to profitably clamp down on copyright delinquency, and to generate the need for entirely new industrial production of viral suppressors to contain the fallout. In this respect it is hard to see how viruses could hardly, in the long run, have benefited industry producers more (Ross 1990: 80). In addition to the practical benefits the CSI has derived from the concerns associated with viruses, the threat they pose to systems' security has been used to reinforce ideological opposition to hackers and their anti-proprietary attitudes: Virus-conscious fear and loathing have clearly fed into the paranoid climate of privatization that increasingly defines social identities in the new post-Fordist order. The result -- a psycho-social closing of the ranks around fortified private spheres -- runs directly counter to the ethic that we might think of as residing at the architectural heart of information technology. In its basic assembly structure, information technology is a technology is a technology of processing, copying, replication, and simulation, and therefore does not recognise the concept of private information property (Ross 1990: 80). The boundary formation exercise necessitates the exclusion of hackers from influence within computing, whilst, at the same time, developing a consistent ethical value system for 'legitimate' security professionals. An example of boundary formation in action is the advent of computer viruses and worms and the particular case of Robert Morris and the Internet Worm. Cornell University published an official report into the Internet Worm incident, concluding that one of the causes of the act was Morris' lack of ethical awareness. The report censures the ambivalent ethical atmosphere of Harvard, Morris' alma mater, where he failed to develop in a computing context a clear ethical sense of right and wrong. Most significantly, the judgement made upon the Morris case was full of implicit assumptions that betrayed a boundary forming process in the way it stressed the need for professional ethics in opposition to those of hackers. Dougan and Gieryn (1988), sum up the boundary-forming aspects of responses to the Internet Worm in their analysis of the e-mail debate that occurred shortly after the incident. The computer community is characterised as falling into two schools of thought with regard to their response to the event. The first group is described as being organised around a principle of 'mechanic solidarity, the second, one of 'organic solidarity'. The mechanic solidarity group's binding principle is the emphasis they place upon the ethical aspect of the Morris case, his actions are seen as unequivocally wrong and the lesson to be learnt in order to prevent future possible incidents is that a professional code of ethics needs to be promulgated. These viewpoints have been illustrated in this study's depiction of the hawkish response to hacking. The second group advocates a policy more consistent with the dovish element of the CSI and those hackers that argue their expertise could be more effectively utilised. They criticise the first group for failing to prevent 'an accident waiting to happen' and expecting that the teaching of computing ethics will solve what they perceive as an essentially technical problem. The likelihood of eliminating the problem with the propagation of a suitable code of professional ethics seems to them remote: I would like to remind everyone that the real bad guys do not share our ethics and are thus not bound by them. We should make it as difficult as possible -- (while preserving an environment conducive to research) for this to happen again. The worm opened some eyes. Let's not close them again by saying 'Gentlemen don't release worms' (Dougan and Gieryn 1988: 12). The hacker Craig Neidorf known as 'Knight Lightning', in his report on a CSI conference, underlines the theory that the debate over hacking centres upon a project of professionalisation, with the argument that what mostly distinguishes the two groups is the form, rather than content of the knowledge they seek to utilise: Zenner and Denning11 alike discussed the nature of Phrack's12 articles. They found that the articles appearing in Phrack contained the same types of material found publicly in other computer and security magazines, but with one significant difference. The tone of the articles. An article named 'How to Hack Unix' in Phrack usually contained very similar information to an article you might see in Communications of the ACM only to be named 'Securing Unix Systems'. (Craig Neidorf: CuD 2.07). The implication is that hackers' security knowledge is not sought due to reasons other than its lack of technical value; instead the CSI fails to utilise such knowledge more fully because it interferes with their boundary-forming project that centres upon attempting to define the difference between a hacker and a 'computer professional': Ironically, these hackers are perhaps driven by the same need to explore, to test technical limits that motivates computer professionals; they decompose problems, develop an understanding of them and then overcome them. But apparently not all hackers recognise the difference between penetrating the technical secrets of their own computer and penetrating a network of computers that belong to others. And therein lies a key distinction between a computer professional and someone who knows a lot about computers. (Edward Parrish 1989). Another interesting example of the similar traits that the CSI and CU share in common, is the case of Clifford Stoll's investigation of an intrusion into the Berkeley University computer laboratories, which he subsequently wrote up in the form of a best-selling book, The Cuckoo's Egg. Thomas points out that: Any computer undergrounder can identify with and appreciate Stoll's obsession and patience in attempting to trace the hacker through a maze of international gateways and computer systems. But, Stoll apparently misses the obvious affinity he has with those he condemns. He simply dismisses hackers as 'monsters' and displays virtually no recognition of the similarities between his own activity and those of the computer underground. This is what makes Stoll's work so dangerous: His work is an unreflective exercise in self-promotion, a tome that divides the sacred world of technocrats from the profane activities of those who would challenge it; Stoll stigmatises without understanding (Thomas 1990). What makes Stoll's behaviour even less understandable is that throughout the book he recounts how he himself engages in the same kind of activities that he criticises others for indulging in. This fact that Stoll labels hackers as 'monsters' despite the fact he shares some of their qualities13 is indicative of the boundary forming process the CSI have entered upon. The process also involves other groups that are involved in the de facto marginalisation of hackers whilst not actually being directly involved in computing, examples of such groups are the various government agencies and politicians involved in the drafting of legislation about hacking. Combined together, these groups have contributed towards a response to hacking that has been labelled a 'witch-hunt' mentality by some observers. 6.7.2 Witch-hunts and hackers Part of the cause of the witch-hunt mentality, that has allegedly been applied to hackers, is the increasing tendency within society towards the privatisation of consumption examined in the early chapters. The pressures to commodify information can be seen as an extension of the decline of the public ethos in modern society which is accompanied by the search for scapegoats that will justify the retreat from communitarian spirit. The hacker is the latest such scapegoat of modern times in a series including Communism, terrorism, child abductors and AIDS: More and more of our neighbours live in armed compounds. Alarms blare continuously. Potentially happy people give their lives over to the corporate state as though the world were so dangerous outside its veil of collective immunity that they have no choice ... The perfect bogeyman for modern times is the Cyberpunk! He is so smart he makes you feel even more stupid than you usually do. He knows this complex country in which you're perpetually lost. He understands the value of things you can't conceptualize long enough to cash in on. He is the one-eyed man in the Country of the Blind (Barlow 1990: 56). This is the root of peoples' fear of hackers and the reason why they are labelled as deviant within society despite the fact that, as we have seen above, hackers share some of the same characteristics as their CSI counterparts. The simultaneous existence of shared characteristics and deviant status for hackers is a necessary result of the fact that: The kinds of practices labelled deviant correspond to those values on which the community places its highest premium. Materialist cultures are beset by theft (although that crime is meaningless in a utopian commune where all property is shared) ... The correspondence between kind of deviance and a community's salient values is no accident ... deviants and conformists both are shaped by the same cultural pressures -- and thus share some, if not all, common values -- though they may vary in their opportunities to pursue valued ends via legitimate means. Deviance ... emerges exactly where it is most feared, in part because every community encourages some of its members to become Darth Vader, taking 'the force' over to the 'dark side' (Dougan and Gieryn 1990: 4). The vocalised antagonism between the CSI and CU and the exaggerated portrayals of the media examined in this chapter are part of the process whereby hackers are marginalised and defined as deviant. In the quotation below Stoll is singled out to personify this process but the method he uses is held in common with all the other figures quoted in this chapter who contribute to the 'them and us' scenario by the strength of the views they express and the analogies they choose to express them with: Witch hunts begin when the targets are labelled as 'other', as something quite different from normal people. In Stoll's view, hackers, like witches, are creatures not quite like the rest of us, and his repetitious use of such pejorative terms as 'rats,' 'monsters,' 'vandals,' and 'bastard' transforms the hacker into something less than human ... In a classic example of a degradation ritual, Stoll -- through assertion and hyperbole rather than reasoned argument -- has redefined the moral status of hackers into something menacing (Thomas 1990). 6.7.3 Closure - the evolution of attitudes The witch hunt process is a device to facilitate what Bijker and Law (1992) have analysed as closure. The notion is usefully illustrated by examining the evolution of society's attitudes from the benign tolerance of the early MIT hackers to the present climate of anti-hacking legislation. In addition to Levy's identification of three generations of hackers14, Landreth suggests the arrival of a fourth generation of hackers when he talks of a major change occurring in the CU around about the time the elitist hacking group he joined known as the "Inner Circle" was set up. In addition to the effect of the increased dispersal of micro-computers, there was also the effect of the hacker movie Wargames.: "In a matter of months the number of self-proclaimed hackers tripled, then quadrupled. You couldn't get through to any of the old bulletin boards any more - the telephone numbers were busy all night long. Even worse, you could delicately work to gain entrance to a system, only to find dozens of novices blithely tromping around the files" (Landreth 1985 :18). These 'wannabe' hackers reflect the relative immaturity and absence of the original hacker ethic that characterises the latest manifestation of hacking. Chris Goggans from the Legion of Doom concurs with this identification of a change in the basic nature of the CU environment. In the early days: People were friendly, computer users were very social. Information was handed down freely, there was a true feeling of brotherhood in the underground. As the years went on people became more and more anti-social. As it became more and more difficult to blue-box the social feeling of the underground began to vanish. People began to hoard information and turn people in for revenge. The underground today is not fun. It is very power hungry, almost feral in its actions. People are grouped off: you like me or you like him, you cannot like both ... The subculture I grew up with , learned in, and contributed to, has decayed into something gross and twisted that I shamefully admit connection with. Everything changes and everything dies, and I am certain that within ten years there will be no such thing as a computer underground. I'm glad I saw it in its prime (Goggans: e-mail interview). Thus one reason for the changing nature of the computer underground is simply the fact that more would-be hackers arrived. 'Elite' hackers such as Goggans felt that this cheapened in some way the ethos and atmosphere of camaradarie that had previously existed within the CU. Feelings of superiority which help to fuel the motivation of a hacker had become undermined by the advent of too many 'wanna-be' young hackers. Sheer numbers alone would mean the demise of the previous emphasis hackers placed upon sharing knowledge and the importance of educating young hackers. The idiosyncratic actions of the first generation hackers, within the isolated academic context of MIT, were often praised for their inventiveness. Similar actions in the wider modern computing community tend to be automatically more disruptive and liable to censure. The reasons for this change in attitude are inextricably linked with the evolution of computing as a technology. Herschberg argues that computer security can be compared to the experiments of the Wright brothers, yet apart from such peripheral 'dovish' sentiments, the climate within the CSI and society as a whole is increasingly unsympathetic to the claims by hackers that they represent innocent intellectual explorers: closure in computer security has occurred. Leichter's perception of the evolution of hacking is at odds with that of Herschberg. He too uses an airplane analogy but prefers to emphasise that: When the first 'airplane hackers' began working on their devices, they were free to do essentially as they pleased. If they crashed and killed themselves well, that was too bad. If their planes worked - so much the better. After it became possible to build working airplanes , there followed a period in which anyone could build one and fly where he liked. But in the long run that became untenable ... If you want to fly today, you must get a license. You must work within a whole set of regulations (Jerry Leichter: CuD 4.18). Over time, technologies develop, and as a result, people's interactions with that technology, even if they remain unchanged, will be viewed differently as society adapts to the changing technology. An example of this is the changing role of system crashes. In the earliest days of computing, the computers functioned by means of large glass valves, which after relatively short periods of use were liable to over-heat, thus causing a system crash. Even if hackers were responsible for some of the system crashes that occurred, the fact that they were equally liable to be caused by other non-hacker means, led to a climate whereby hacker-induced crashes were accepted as a minor inconvenience even when they were extremely disruptive by today's standards. This is an example, therefore, of the importance of taking into account the societal context of an act involving technology before an evaluation of its ethical content is made. 6.8 CONCLUSION This chapter has traced the origin of the ethical debate between the CSI and the CU, showing how the novel nature of some of the situations thrown up by computing has resulted in a process of negotiation. This process takes the form of markedly different ethical responses to the novel situations being made and competing with each other. The contrasting interests and perspectives of the two groups is highlighted by the fact that whilst hackers see their activity as manifesting ethical concern over potential governmental and commercial abuses of privacy, the CSI prefers to see the activity as unethical or as evidence of a general decline in social values. There are two important elements of doubt regarding the view of the CSI. Firstly, the argument that hacking is intrinsically unethical is weakened by the fact that, as Levy documents, the same acts of hacking that are now criticised as immoral, were benignly tolerated in the days of the early MIT hackers. Bloombecker even goes so far as to claim that what would nowadays be labelled a computer criminal, helped to make computing what it is. Cohen also asserts, that unofficially, hackers are often used commercially to check the security of systems. Secondly, the chapter has shown, that an increasing aspect of computing is the way in which it produces novel situations where there seem to be no clear-cut boundaries between right and wrong. This is most noticeable in the situations produced by technology that are most divorced from everyday experience, typified by the notion of cyberspace. Ethical uncertainty concerning hacking is also exacerbated by the fact that the activity is often motivated by a series of complex factors. The fact that there is a keen debate, both within the CSI, and between the CSI and the CU, implies that any purported immorality of hacking is due to the social shaping of a perception that has evolved from the MIT days of benign tolerance to the present atmosphere of criminalisation. An important part of this process of social shaping is the way in which physical analogies are used in the formation of computer ethics. They are being increasingly used in professional discussions of the issues as part of the process of group delineation. Where previously there were only blurred or indefinite computer ethics, physical analogies are now used to establish clearer computing mores. The need to use physical analogies in the first place arises because hacking takes place in the qualitatively new realm of human experience: cyberspace. The fact that the real world and cyberspace are such different realms has led to a need to explain and make ethical judgements about hacking from a conventional frame of reference, that is, using analogies based upon the physical world. The constant use of physical analogies and metaphors in discussing the legal and ethical issues of hacking is thus an attempt to redefine, in a practical manner, the concept of informational property rights, as they are to be applied in the computer age. The use of analogies is much more common within the CSI than it is from hackers themselves. This is because the CSI have a general need to make comparisons between cyberspace and the real world in order to legitimate their role and to demonise the CU. Hackers do not have this need; their behaviour is based upon accepting computing as a realm of intellectual and social experimentation, and they find it attractive because of the very fact that it is different from the real world. In summary, there are perennial claims from each successive generation that the youth of the age are largely unethical, and that they are harbingers of a break-down in the general moral order. Such claims are perhaps an inevitable part of the human condition, and its inter-generational relations. This study, however, is more concerned with the specific aspects of computing that give rise to qualitatively new circumstances facing computer users, the ethics of which are indeterminate. These situations encourage behaviour, which, to be recognised as unethical, assumes that an adequate and convincing comparison can be made with non-computing situations. It is the difficulty of attempting to conceptualise the ethics of computer-induced scenarios that leads to attempts to translate them into a more easily understood and common-place experience. The chapter shows, however, that there is doubts as to whether 'real-world' ethics can be transposed in such a literal manner. This is illustrated by the various examples given of the CSI's alleged double standards. These examples imply that the vagueness of computing ethics is such that any professional code of ethics that is produced is likely to be more the result of one group enforcing its value system on another group, rather than one group having any inherently superior moral advantage in the ethical debate. The process whereby one group's value system can be imposed upon another has been analysed in a frame of reference that compares the increasing marginalisation of hackers from mainstream computer usage to the practice of witch-hunts. One analysis of the gradual stigmatisation of hackers is that they have been part of a degradation ritual whereby a more dominant social group has progressively alienated them from 'normal' society in order to promote its professional interest. The role of the media in this process has been shown by the way it projects hackers as stigmatised 'others', thus aiding the boundary forming professionalisation process of the CSI. Particular examples of the process of group differentiation and professionalisation have been given, relating to the advent of viruses and the specific case of the Internet Worm. The likelihood of eliminating threats to computer security with the propagation of a suitable code of professional ethics seems remote considering the extent of the CU's ethical disagreement with the CSI and the thrill obtained from the very fact that the CU is 'underground'. Despite this, once the process of professionalisation has been initiated, the temptation is to proceed to codify the nascent but dominant group's response to computing's ethical dilemmas, by means of legislation. The subsequent closure of computing technology has occurred to such an extent that the hippy-like ethos of the CU looks increasingly anachronistic in the 1980's and 90's. In so far as hackers have represented a force of anti-capitalistic information-sharing, their stance seems to have absorbed within the state's sponsorship of the development of computing technology. The second generation hard-ware hackers such as Steve Wozniak, have seen their 'wholesome and green' product (hence the name 'Apple') brought to the masses as indeed they wished, but significantly as a commodified product. This is perhaps a reflection of the market's ability to co-opt and absorb radical change. It threatens, in the case of hackers, to undermine their status as a group embodying alternative values. The new generation of 'wanna-be' hackers, is significant because it represents more than simply adolescent boys intrigued by the intellectual challenge and feelings of power of illicit computing. In addition, they also represent the increasing tendency of information to be viewed as a tradeable commodity in the form of 'Amiga kid'-type groups. Their illicit blackmarket activities and their seemingly amoral views regarding the ethical implications of accessing and manipulating other peoples' information represents the extreme end of a spectrum which also includes the activity of 'benign' hackers. It is a spectrum whose various points reflect some of the ethical issues that society still has to satisfactorily address regarding information and the implications of its changing properties. An example of the unsettled nature of society's response to information is the doubt that still remains regarding the effects of its policy of closure towards hackers. The question still arises from the above analysis of whether the evolution of attitudes towards the CU is in response to a change in its nature towards a more crime-orientated environment, or whether the increased tendency to perceive and portray hacking as a criminal and unethical activity has taken on the quality of a self-fulfilling prophecy, driving would-be 'pleasure hackers' into the arms of the criminal underground. The implications of this latter scenario are examined in the next chapter. 1 Thus Eric Goggans and Robert Schifreen (as well as several other hackers encountered in the fieldwork) have started their own computer firms; Professor Herschberg has contacts with and produces interaction between hackers and the security industry by means of his consultancy work, and the authorised and unauthorised (in the case of accepting a documented hack in lieu of a dissertation) use of students to test systems. 2 Fear of boundary transgression is vividly portrayed in such urban legends as 'The Mexican Dog' and 'The Choking Doberman', c.f. Woolgar (1990). 3 Joseph Lewis Popp: he was charged in January 1990 with using a trojan horse hidden within a diskette to extort money from recipients whose systems had subsequently become infected. The trial did not come to court, however, because his defence argued that he was mentally unfit to stand trial. They described how he had taken to putting hair curlers in his beard and wearing a cardboard box on his head in an apparent attempt to protect himself from radiation. 4 c.f. Appendix 1's summary of the fieldwork's statistical evidence of the age factor. 5 Sterling 1993: 95 6 references taken from CuD 4.11 7 As shown with the title of Paul Mungo's article: "Satanic Viruses" (c.f. bibliiography) 8 c.f. CuD 3:37 9 Channel 4 Television, November 1989 10 c.f Woolgar 1990. 11 The former was the defence lawyer for Craig Neidorf in the E911 trial of 1990, Dorothy Denning being a computer scientist from Georgetown University, Washington, with an academic interest in CU issues. 12 CU electronic magazine 13 Thomas' review of The Cuckoo's Egg includes numerous examples of Stoll indulging in such activities as borrowng other peoples' computers without permission and monitoring other peoples' electronic communications without authorisation. 14 c.f. Appendix 2 for a full account. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 May 1997 22:51:01 CST From: CuD Moderators Subject: File 2--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 7 May, 1997) Cu-Digest is a weekly electronic journal/newsletter. Subscriptions are available at no cost electronically. CuD is available as a Usenet newsgroup: comp.society.cu-digest Or, to subscribe, send post with this in the "Subject:: line: SUBSCRIBE CU-DIGEST Send the message to: cu-digest-request@weber.ucsd.edu DO NOT SEND SUBSCRIPTIONS TO THE MODERATORS. The editors may be contacted by voice (815-753-6436), fax (815-753-6359) or U.S. mail at: Jim Thomas, Department of Sociology, NIU, DeKalb, IL 60115, USA. 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