The Hacker's Encyclopedia 1998/hackers_encyclopedia.iso/zines/cud/cud959a.txt

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Computer underground Digest    Sun  July 27, 1997   Volume 9 : Issue 59
                           ISSN  1004-042X

       Editor: Jim Thomas ([e-mail])
       News Editor: Gordon Meyer ([e-mail])
       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--Paul Taylor's Forthcoming "Hacker" Book (excerpt)
File 2--Chapter 6 of P. Taylor's book - "Them and Us" (part 1 of 2)

CuD ADMINISTRATIVE, EDITORIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION APPEARS IN
THE CONCLUDING FILE AT THE END OF EACH ISSUE.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 18 Jun 97 17:25
From: [e-mail]
Subject: File 1--Paul Taylor's Forthcoming "Hacker" Book

((MODERATORS' NOTE:  A few years ago, Paul Taylor solicited
information on "hackers" in a CuD post for his Phd dissertation.
He completed it, and it will soon be published by Routledge and
Kegan Paul.  The publication date is anticipated to be in early
1998, and the tentative title: HACKERS: A STUDY OF A
TECHNOCULTURE, although Paul is still searching for (and is open
to) suggestions.  Sadly, though, publishers usually suggest the
final title and their choice usually prevails.  The estimated
price for the paperback version should be about 15 pounds, which
would make the US version about $20.

CuD will run a chapter, which will be divided into two sections
of this CuD issue because of length)).

  ------------------

Jim has kindly agreed to put up on CuD an excerpt from my
forthcoming book on hackers.  Its present form is straight from
my PhD thesis but I would like to use peoples' feedback to help
me up-date my work prior and to make it more accessible to a
non-academic audience.  If you have any comments or views on my
portrayal of hacking then please contact me -
[e-mail].

The reason for putting up the posting is

a) to thank and give something back to the original people who
contributed.
b) to stimulate further interest that will help in the up-dating
of the original work - specifically ...
  i) what do people think are the major developments in the CU over
      the last 3/4 years?
  ii) what do people think are the major differences (if any)
      between the CU scene in the US as compared to Europe/rest of the
      world?

There's an open invite for people to contact me and discuss the
above and/or anything else that they think is relevant/important.
Below is a brief overview of
the eventual book's rationale and proposed structure.

Hackers: a study of a technoculture

Background

"Hackers" is based upon 4 years PhD research conducted from
1989-1993 at the University of Edinburgh.  The research focussed
upon 3 main groups: the Computer Underground (CU); the Computer
Security Industry (CSI); and the academic community.  Additional
information was obtained from government officials, journalists
etc.

The face-to-face interview work was conducted in the UK and the
Netherlands.  It included figures such as Rop Gongrijp of
Hack-Tic magazine, Prof Hirschberg of Delft University, and
Robert Schifreen.  E-mail/phone interviews were conducted in
Europe and  the US with figures such as Prof Eugene Spafford of
Purdue Technical University, Kevin Mitnick, Chris Goggans and
John Draper.

Rationale

This book sets out to be an academic study of the social
processes behind hacking that is nevertheless accessible to a
general audience.  It seeks to compensate for the "Gee-whiz"
approach of many of the journalistic accounts of hacking.  The
tone of these books tends to be set by their titles: The Fugitive
Game; Takedown; The Cyberthief and the Samurai; Masters of
Deception - and so on ...

The basic argument in this book is that, despite the media
portrayal, hacking is not, and never has been, a simple case of
"electronic vandals" versus the good guys: the truth is much more
complex.  The boundaries between hacking, the security industry
and academia, for example, are often relatively fluid.  In
addition, hacking has a significance outside of its immediate
environment: the disputes that surround it symbolise society's
attempts to shape the values of the informational environments we
will inhabit tomorrow.



Book Outline

Introduction - the background of the study and the range of
contributors

Chapter 1 - The cultural significance of hacking: non-fiction and
fictional portrayals of hacking.

Chapter 2 - Hacking the system:  hackers and theories of technological change.

Chapter 3 - Hackers: their culture.

Chapter 4 - Hackers: their motivations

Chapter 5 - The State of the (Cyber)Nation: computer security weaknesses.

Chapter 6- Them and Us: boundary formation and constructing "the other".

Chapter 7 - Hacking and Legislation.

Conclusion

Paul Taylor

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 14:05:55 +0100
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Preview of "Hacker" book: THEM AND US (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 6 - 'Them and us'

6.1 INTRODUCTION

6.2 BOUNDARY FORMATION - 'THEM AND US'
6.2.1 The evidence - Hawkish strength of feeling

6.3 REASONS FOR 'THEM AND US'
6.3.1 Ethical differences between the CSI and CU
6.3.2 The fear of anonymity

6.4 THE ETHICAL BASIS OF THE 'THEM AND US' SCENARIO
6.4.1 Blurred and vestigial ethics
6.4.2 Industry examples of blurred ethics
6.4.3 Technology and ethics

6.5 BOUNDARY FORMATION - ROLE OF THE MEDIA

6.6  BOUNDARY FORMATION PROCESS AND THE USE OF  ANALOGIES

6.7 THE PROJECT OF PROFESSIONALISATION
6.7.1 Creation of the computer security market and professional  ethos
6.7.2 Witch-hunts and hackers
6.7.3 Closure - the evolution of attitudes

6.8 CONCLUSION



6.1 INTRODUCTION

Hackers are like kids putting a 10 pence piece on a railway line to see if
 the train can bend it, not realising that they risk de-railing the whole
 train (Mike Jones: London interview).

 The technical objections of the hawks to hacking, which reject the argument
 advocating cooperation with hackers, are supplemented by their ethical
 objections to the activity, explored in this chapter.  Previous chapters
 have shown that there is some interplay and contact between the hacker
 community and the computer security industry, as well as the more
 subsidiary group: the academics1.  The much more common relationship
 between hackers and the computer security industry, however, is the
 thinly-veiled or open hostility evident in the opinions of the hawks.
 This chapter examines the basis of this hostility.  The groups' contrasting
 ethical stances are highlighted, and their origins explained.  The
 technical evolution of computing is shown as creating new conditions that
 demand ethical judgements to be made with respect to what  constitutes
 ethical use of computer resources.  The CU and the CSI have different
 ethical interpretations that are expressed in a process of debate.  This
 debate then becomes part of a boundary forming process between the two
 groups.  Two identifiable influences upon such ethical judgements are the
 age of the person making the judgement, and the extent to which technology
 plays a part in the situation about which an ethical judgement has to be
 made.
 Elements of the CSI and the CU  stand in identifiable opposition to each
 other.  This chapter shows how this opposition is maintained and
 exacerbated as part of a boundary forming process.  Ethical differences
 between the two groups are espoused, but examples are given of the extent
 to such differences are still in a process of formation within computing's
 nascent environment.  Thus the type of mentality within the CU that fails
 to accept any ethical implications from phone-phreaking or hacking is
 sharply opposed by the CSI, whose typical sentiment  is that computer users
 such as hackers have forgotten "that sometimes they must leave the playpen
 and accept the notion that computing is more than just a game" (Bloombecker
 1990: 41).  This contention that hackers have failed to psychologically
 "come out of the playpen" is illustrative of some of the marked ethical
 differences between the two groups.
 This chapter, however, draws attention to examples of the more ambiguous
 and blurred ethical situations within computing, and how an on-going
 process of negotiation, group differentiation and boundary formation, is
 required to maintain such differences between the groups.  The ethical
 complexities surrounding computing are becoming increasingly important as
 it becomes a more prevalent aspect of everyday life.  The CSI, as a part of
 a dominant social constituency of business and political interests, is
 involved in a process of attempting to impose its interpretation of such
 ethical issues upon computing.  Advocates of different ethical approaches
 find themselves increasingly separated by moral boundaries that have become
 codified into professional regulations and government legislation.
 The "them and us" scenario caused by the contrasting ethical stances is
 fuelled by the media's portrayal of hackers as unethical outsiders.   The
 most obvious manifestation of this is the evolution of attitudes held
 towards hackers by the dominant social constituency.  The 'true hackers' of
 MIT were active from the late 1950's and were instrumental in the
 development of both hardware and software, whereas  hackers are now largely
 perceived as a problem to be legislated away.  This evolution in
 perceptions is simultaneously a result of the emergence of the CSI as a
 constituency, and a causal factor in that development.   To illustrate the
 process of boundary formation we note comparisons of the debate surrounding
 Robert Morris Jr's intrusion into the internet system with the language and
 attitudes displayed during the Salem Witch trials (Dougan and Gieryn 1988).
  The press, in particular, has been particularly active in the process of
 stereotyping and sensationalising hacking incidents, the process helping to
 produce a deviant group status for hackers.
  The chapter also includes analysis of one of the most interesting aspects
 of the boundary forming process between the CSI and the CU, namely, the way
 in which physical comparisons are made between situations that arise in
 computing and the real world.  These metaphors are used as explanatory
 tools and also in the production and maintenance of the value systems that
 separate the two groups.  The physical analogies used seem to fulfil both
 of these functions.  They allow what would otherwise be potentially
 complicated technical and ethical questions to be approached in a more
 manageable and everyday manner, yet they also contribute directly to the
 formation of ethical boundaries due to their particular suitability as a
 means of sensationalising hacking issues.
 Public commentators such as Gene Spafford have made various polemical
 statements of what hacking and its implications are: employing a hacker, is
 like making 'an arsonist your fire chief, or a paedophile a school
 teacher.'  The actions of hackers are thus forcefully taken out of the
 realms of 'cyberspace' and reintroduced into the concrete realm of
 threatening real world situations.  If the comparison is accepted, then the
 danger and harm to be suffered from such actions are more readily
 understood and feared, and hackers as a group may then be effectively
 viewed as moral pariahs.  With reference to Woolgar's (1990) attempt to
 link computer virus stories with the prevalence of 'urban/contemporary
 legends', it can be pointed out that the physical analogies used by the CSI
 in discussions of computer ethics emphasise the transgressive 'breaking and
 entering' qualities of hacking2.  In contrast, the CU reject such dramatic
 analogies and prefer to emphasise the intellectual and pioneering qualities
 of hacking which we will subsequently analyse with respect to their chosen
 analogies: comparisons of hacking's intellectual nature and frontier ethos
 to a game of chess and the Wild West, respectively.

6.2 BOUNDARY FORMATION - 'THEM AND US'

 Dougan and Gieryn (1988), like Meyer and Thomas (1990), have compared the
 process of boundary formation within computing with the historical examples
 of formalised witch trials.  This is an extreme process of 'boundary
 formation' whereby groups differentiate themselves by marginalising other
 groups thereby establishing their own identity.  "Witch hunts" occur in
 periods of social transition and we have seen in Chapter 3 that IT is
 undergoing a period of social change.  The economic order is attempting to
 impose property relations upon information, yet its changing nature
 undermines its properties as a commodity.
 Computer counter-cultures are increasingly perceived as a threat to the
 establishment's ability to control technology for its own purposes.  The
 initial awe and even respect with which hackers were originally viewed as
 'technological wizards' has given way to the more frequent hawkish
 perception that they are 'electronic vandals'.  Dominant social groups
 initially mythologise and then stigmatise peripheral groups that do not
 share their value-structure.  In the case of hackers, this tendency has
 been exacerbated by the fear and ignorance encouraged as a result of
 hacking's covert nature and the difficulties of documenting the activity.

 Dougan and Gieryn (1988), amongst others, point out that such concepts of
 deviancy have a function.  Put simply, a community only has a sense of its
 community status by knowing what it is not.  Distancing themselves from
 outsiders helps members within that group feel a sense of togetherness.
 Furthermore, cultures that emphasise certain values over others will tend
 to label as deviant those activities which threaten its most prized value.
 In the particular case of hackers, their stigmatisation and marginalisation
 has occurred because they have threatened, with their information-sharing
 culture, one of the basic crutches of the capitalist order: property
 rights.  The facilitating feature of the boundary forming process between
 the CU and the CSI is the sense of otherness and lack of affinity with
 which they confront each other: the "them and us" scenario.

6.2.1 The evidence - hawkish strength of feeling

 Direct access to the debate between the CSI and CU can be obtained by
 looking at examples of e-mail correspondence known as 'flames'.  These are
 strongly worded, and often insulting electronic mail messages.  They serve
 to illustrate the antagonism that exists between the CSI and CU.  The
 following are examples of the expressions used on e-mail to describe
 hackers and hacking:

I am for making the penalties for computer trespass extremely painful to the
 perpetrator ... Most administrators who've had to clean up and audit a
 system of this size probably think that a felony rap is too light a
 sentence.  At times like that, we tend to think in terms of boiling in oil,
 being drawn and quartered, or maybe burying the intruder up to his neck in
 an anthill (Bob Johnson: RISKS electronic digest, 11:32).

electronic vandalism (Warman: e-mail interview).

Somewhere near vermin i.e. possibly unavoidable, maybe even necessary pests
 that can be destructive and disruptive if not monitored (Zmudsinki e-mail
 interview).

Mostly they seem to be kids with a dramatically underdeveloped sense of
 community and society
(Bernie Cosell: e-mail interview).



 Opposition to hacking practices has become increasingly non-specific and
 moralistic, an example being Spafford's argument that   using hackers'
 knowledge on a regular basis within the computer security industry is
 equivalent to employing a known arsonist as your fire-chief, a fraudster as
 your accountant, or a paedophile as your child-minder.  The technical
 insights that they could provide or could be derived as a by-product of
 their activities become subordinate to the need to express opprobrium
 against the morality of the actions themselves.  The language of blame and
 morality is consistently used by hawkish members of the CSI to refer to
 hackers in what they would argue is a process of 'blame displacement'.  The
 CSI are accused of using moral condemnation as a means of deflecting any
 responsibility and blame for security breaches  that might be attached, not
 just to the perpetrators of intrusions, but also their victims.  As
 Herschberg said:

The pseudo-moral arguments and the moralistic language certainly cloud the
 issue in my view.  I think it obscures the fact that system owners or
 system administrators have a moral duty to do at least their level best to
 stop penetrations.  They are very remiss in their duty, they couldn't care
 less and therefore at least, there is quite an understandable tendency to
 blame the penetrator rather than blaming themselves for not having taken at
 least adequate counter measures, in fact in some cases counter measures
 have not been taken at all ... if it is proved to you that you haven't done
 your homework, then you almost automatically go into a defensive attitude
 which in this case, simply amounts to attacking the hacker, blaming him
 morally, heaping opprobrium on his head ... yes, the fear factor is
 involved (Herschberg: Delft interview).

 This undercurrent of moral censure was a recurrent quality of the
 field-work interviews with members of the CSI, for example:


I've been in this game ... this is my 36th year, in the interests of hacking
 as a whole I think hacking is something which is derogatory; to be played
 down, to possibly in fact, be treated as a minor form of criminal activity
 ... the last thing you want to do is to make hackers into public figures;
 give them publicity.  I think it needs to be played down when it occurs,
 but it shouldn't occur ... I wouldn't have them, no, under any
 circumstances (Taylor: Knutsford interview).

 Dr Taylor and others interviewees, involved in the provision of computer
 security, had had surprisingly little direct contact with hackers.  I asked
 him about this lack of direct contact/interplay and his perceptions of the
 motivations of hackers:

Well, there shouldn't be [any interplay] because the industry doesn't want
 to hear about hackers and certainly doesn't want to see the effects of what
 they do ... To me I'm not concerned with what the hacker does, I'm more
 concerned with keeping him out to start with ... You've talked to what are
 called the more ethical members of the hacking community for whom it's an
 intellectual challenge, but there are in fact people who are psychopaths,
 and Doctor Popp3 is one of these, where they just want to level a score
 with society which they feel has been unfair to them ... A chap called
 Whitely has just gone to prison for four years for destroying medical data
 at Queen Mary's hospital, London.  He just destroyed utterly and he wasn't
 just a hacker that was browsing, he was a psychopath almost certainly
 (Taylor: Knutsford interview).

 In contrast, and as an illustration of the negative perceptions each groups
 has of the other, a hacker, Mofo, argues that psychotic tendencies are not
 the sole preserve of the hacking community:

my experience has shown me that the actions of 'those in charge' of computer
 systems and networks have similar 'power trips' which need be fulfilled.
 Whether this psychotic need is developed or entrenched before one's
 association with computers is irrelevant.  Individuals bearing such faulty
 mental health are present in all walks of life.  I believe it is just a
 matter of probability that many such individuals are somewhat associated
 with the management of computers and networks [as well as intrusion into
 computer systems] (Mofo: e-mail interview).

 Taylor is wary of the damage to computing that greater publicisation of
 hacking could cause, yet as the above reference to Dr Popp and Nicholas
 Whitley shows, ironically, he seemed to be dependent upon the most
 publicised cases of hacking for his perceptions of hackers.  A further
 argument that prevents the CSI accepting hackers as potentially useful
 fault-finders in systems is the simple charge that without the existence of
 hackers in the first place, there would be very little need for extensive
 security measures.  Even if hackers are of some use in pointing out various
 bugs in systems, such a benefit is outweighed by the fact that a large
 amount of computing resources are 'wasted' on what would otherwise be
 unnecessary security measures.  For example, Dr Taylor's view is that:

hacking is a menace that stops people doing constructive work ... A lot of
 money get's spent today on providing quite complex solutions to keep ahead
 of hackers, which in my view should not be spent ... They're challenging
 the researchers to produce better technical solutions and they're
 stimulating the software service industry which provides these solutions
 and makes money out of it.  But you answer the question for me, what's that
 doing for society? (Taylor: Knutsford interview).

 Thus one reason for the use of moral language is in order to displace blame
 from those in charge of the systems where security is lax, to those who
 have broken that lax security.  Irrespective of the state of security of
 systems, there is a project of group formation whereby those who implement
 computer security wish to isolate and differentiate themselves from the CU,
 in a process that highlights the inherent differences that exist between
 the two groups.  This project is vividly illustrated in the following
 excerpt from the keynote Turing Award acceptance speech given by Ken
 Thompson:

I have watched kids testifying before Congress.  It is clear that they are
 completely unaware of the seriousness of their acts.  There is obviously a
 cultural gap.  The act of breaking into a computer system has to have the
 same social stigma as breaking into a neighbor's house.  It should not
 matter that the neighbour's door is unlocked.  The press must learn that
 misguided use of a computer is no more amazing than drunk driving of an
 automobile (Thompson 1984: 763).

   This degree of sentiment was consistently expressed amongst some of the
 most prominent and accomplished of those figures from the computer security
 industry who were  generally opposed to hackers:

Unfortunately ... it is tempting to view the hacker as something of a folk
 hero - a lone individual who, armed with only his own ingenuity, is able to
 thwart the system.  Not enough attention is paid to the real damage that
 such people can do...when somebody tampers with someone else's data or
 programs, however clever the method, we all need to recognise that such an
 act is at best irresponsible and very likely criminal.  That the offender
 feels no remorse, or that the virus had unintended consequences does not
 change the essential lawlessness of the act, which is in effect
 breaking-and-entering.   And asserting that the act had a salutary outcome,
 since it led to stronger safeguards, has no more validity than if the same
 argument were advanced in defense of any crime.  If after experiencing a
 burglary I purchase a burglar alarm for my house, does that excuse the
 burglar?  Of course not.  Any such act should be vigorously prosecuted
 (Parrish 1989).

 Several of the above quotations are notable for their heavy reliance upon
 the visual imagery of metaphors comparing the ethical issues arising from
 computing with real-world situations, a topic that will be looked at
 shortly.

6.3 REASONS FOR 'THEM AND US'

6.3.1 Ethical differences between the CSI and CU

 Having identified the strength of feeling of hawkish views of hacking, this
 section explores the ethical basis of that antagonism. The following
 quotation from a member of the CSI illustrates the stark difference between
 the ethical outlooks of certain members of the computing constituency.
 Elements of the CSI vehemently oppose the "playpen attitude" advocated by
 elements of the CU.  Presupposing that no harm is done, hackers tend to
 believe that it is not wrong to explore systems without prior permission,
 whilst those concerned with the security of those systems would
 characterise such a belief as offensive:

Just because YOU have such a totally bankrupt sense of ethics and propriety,
 that shouldn't put a burden on *me* to have to waste my time dealing with
 it.  Life is short enough to not have it gratuitously wasted on
 self-righteous, immature fools...If you want to 'play' on my system, you
 can ASK me, try to convince me *a priori* of the innocence of your intent,
 and if I say "no" you should just go away.  And playing without asking is,
 and should be criminal; I have no obligation, nor any interest, in being
 compelled to provide a playpen for bozos who are so jaded that they cannot
 amuse themselves in some non-offensive way (Cosell CUD 3:12).

 When we examine the factors underpinning the CSI's and CU's contrasting
 ethical interpretations we find an important feature is the tendency of the
 CSI to denigrate, or devalue the ethics articulated by hackers.  Bob
 Johnson, a Senior Systems analyst and Unix System Administrator at a US
 military installation criticises the justifications used by hackers as an
 example of the modern tendency to indulge in "positional ethics".
 Referring to the Internet worm case he states:

The majority of people refuse to judge on the basis of "right and wrong".
 Instead, they judge the actions in terms of result, or based on actual
 damages, or incidental damages or their own personal ideas.  In my mind,
 Morris was WRONG in what he did, regardless of damages, and should
 therefore be prepared to pay for his deeds.  Many others do not suffer from
 this "narrow frame of mind".  By the way, positional ethics is the same
 line of reasoning which asks, "When would it be right to steal a loaf of
 bread?"  I believe that the answer is "It may someday be necessary, but
 it's never right" (Bob Johnson: e-mail interview).

 The "hawkish" elements of the CSI are unequivocal in their condemnation of
 hacking and its lack of ethics.  They argue that the lack of ethics shown
 by hackers is indicative of a wider societal decline.   Thus Smb
 characterises the alleged degeneration of the average persons ethics, not
 as a breakdown in morality, but rather as a spread of amorality: "I'm far
 from convinced that the lack of ethics is unique to hackers.  I think it's
 a societal problem, which in this business we see manifested as hacking.
 Amorality rather than immorality is the problem" (Smb: E-mail interview).
 Similarly, Bob Johnson argues that:

In a larger sense, I view them [hacking and viruses] as part of the same
 problem, which is a degeneration of the average persons ethics - i.e.
 integrity and honesty.  There's a popular saying in America - 'You're not
 really breaking the speed limit unless you get caught.  I believe an
 ethical person would neither break into systems, nor write viruses (Bob
 Johnson: e-mail interview).

 Cosell takes this argument further, the "degeneration of the average
 person's ethics" is applied to a loss of respect by hackers for property
 rights:

The issue here is one of ethics, not damages.  I'll avoid the "today's
 children are terrors" argument, but some parts of that cannot be avoided:
 the hackers take the point of view that the world at large OWES them
 amusement, and that anything they can manage to break into is fair game [an
 astonishing step beyond an already reprehensible position, that anything
 not completely nailed down is fair game] (Cosell: e-mail interview).

 A study into social and business ethical questions was carried out by
 Johnston and Wood (1985, cited by Vinten 1990) for the British Social
 Attitudes Survey.  Apart from their major conclusion that the single most
 important factor influencing the strength of people's ethical judgements
 was age, it seems difficult to point to clear ethical boundaries and
 guide-lines in relation to many of the situations that arise in the modern
 world, especially in the realms of business.  Thus in his summary of the
 report Vinten describes how: "In situations ranging widely from
 illegitimate tipping of dustmen to serious corruption, no clear-cut
 boundaries emerged as between 'right' and 'wrong' ... Sub-group variation
 was greatest where situations were complicated by motivation questions, and
 by being remote from everyday experience" (Vinten 1990: 3).  Hacking
 fulfils both of these criteria.
 The advent of "virtual reality" or "cyberspace" tends to divorce computing
 from "everyday experience".  This leads directly to an ambiguous ethical
 status for many computing situations and a concomitant need to assert
 ethical standards by the dominant social constituency if it is to succeed
 in exerting control over computing.  Vinten's study of computer ethics
 (1990) points out that ethical judgements tend to be harsher, the older the
 person making the judgements.  Members of the CSI consistently have
 strongly critical views of the ethical stance taken by hackers.  They tend
 to be older than hackers, having been involved with computers, as a career,
 for many years.  Hackers, in contrast, tend to use computers more as a
 hobby and may hack in order to gain access to systems which their youth
 precludes them from obtaining access to by legitimate means.  This age
 difference is perhaps one reason why there are such fundamental differences
 in the ethical outlook of members of the CSI and CU4.

6.3.2 Fear of Anonymity

 One of the common themes that stems from the CSI's perception of hackers is
 their tendency to assume the worst intent behind the actions of intruders,
 a tendency encouraged by the fact that hacking is intrinsically anonymous:


There is a great difference between trespassing on my property and breaking
 into my computer.  A better analogy might be finding a trespasser in your
 high-rise office building at 3 AM, and learning that his back-pack
 contained some tools, some wire, a timer and a couple of detonation caps.
 He could claim that he wasn't planting a bomb, but how can you be sure?
 (Cosell: e-mail interview).

 Another vivid example of the doubt caused by the anonymity of hackers  is
 the comparison below made by Mike Jones of the DTI's security awareness
 division.  I pointed out that many hackers feel victimised by the
 establishment because they believe it is more interested in prosecuting
 them than patching up the holes they are pointing out with their activity.
 Jones accepted that there was prejudice in the views of the CSI towards the
 CU.  That prejudice, however, is based upon the potential damage that
 hackers can cause.  Even if there is no malicious intention from the
 hacker, suspicion and doubt as to what harm has been done exists:

Say you came out to your car and your bonnet was slightly up and you looked
 under the bonnet and somebody was tampering with the leads or there looked
 like there were marks on the brake-pipe.  Would you just put the bonnet
 down and say "oh, they've probably done no harm" and drive off, or would
 you suspect that they've done something wrong and they've sawn through a
 brake-pipe or whatever... say a maintenance crew arrived at a hanger one
 morning and found that somebody had broken in and there were screw-driver
 marks on the outside casing of one of the engines, now would they look
 inside and say "nothing really wrong here" or would they say, "hey, we've
 got to take this engine apart or at least look at it so closely that we can
 verify that whatever has been done hasn't harmed the engine"  (Jones:
 London interview).

 These two quotations proffer an important explanation of the alleged
 paranoid and knee-jerk reactions to hacking activity from the computing
 establishment.  The general prejudice held by the CSI  towards the CU is
 heightened by the anonymous quality of hacking.  The anonymity encourages
 doubts and paranoia as a result of being unable to assess the motivation of
 intruders and the likelihood that any harm that has been committed will be
 difficult to uncover.
 In addition to these points, the anonymity afforded by Computer Mediated
 Communication (CMC) encourages hackers to project exaggeratedly threatening
 personalities to the outside world and media.  Barlow (1990) describes
 meeting some hackers who had previously frightened him with their
 aggressive e-mail posturing.  When Barlow actually came face to face with
 two of the hackers they:

were well scrubbed and fashionably clad.  They looked to be as dangerous as
 ducks.  But ... as ... the media have discovered to their delight, the boys
 had developed distinctly showier personae for their rambles through the
 howling wilderness of Cyberspace.  Glittering with spikes of binary chrome,
 they strode past the klieg lights and into the digital distance.  There
 they would be outlaws.  It was only a matter of time before they started to
 believe themselves as bad as they sounded.  And no time at all before
 everyone else did (Barlow 1990: 48).

 The anonymity afforded by CMC thus allows hacking culture to indulge in
 extravagant role-playing which enhances the perception of it in the eyes of
 outsiders as being a potentially dangerous underground movement.  Hacking
 groups generally choose colourful names such as "Bad Ass Mother Fuckers,
 Chaos Computer Club, Circle of Death, Farmers of Doom"5, and so on.

6.4 THE ETHICAL BASIS OF THE 'THEM AND US' SCENARIO

6.4.1 Blurred and vestigial ethics

Cracking, virus writing, and all the rest, fall into the realm of
 possibility when dealing with intelligent, curious minds.  The ethics of
 such things come later.  Until then, users of computers remain in this
 infancy of cracking, etc. (Kerchen: e-mail interview).

 The ethical edges demarcating legal and illicit acts have a higher tendency
 to be blurred whenever technology has a significant presence in the context
 of the act.  The acts of such figures as Captain Crunch have been received
 with a combination of admiration and condemnation.  Opposition to attempts
 to commodify and institutionalise informational property relations can
 exist in such rebellious manipulations of technology; but also more
 'respectably' in the intellectual and political platforms of such figures
 as Richard Stallman and the League for Programming Freedom.  Activities
 involving the use of computers have given rise to a number of qualitatively
 new situations in which there is a debate as to whether the act in question
 is ethical or not.  These activities tend to centre upon such questions as
 whether the unauthorised access to and/or use of somebody's computer,
 system, or data can be adequately compared to more traditional crimes
 involving the physical access or manipulation of material objects or
 property.
 An example of such ambiguity is the fact that whereas the idiosyncratic
 behaviour of the early hackers of MIT was benignly tolerated now hacking is
 portrayed in the press as having evil associations and is subject to legal
 prosecution.  This apparent change in social values has occurred despite
 the fact that the motivations and lack of regard for property rights
 associated with hacking have remained constant over time.  Examples of the
 previously ad hoc morality with respect to computers abound.  The first
 generation MIT hackers engaged in such illicit activity as using equipment
 without authorisation (Levy 1984: 20), phone phreaking (pg 92),
 unauthorised modification of equipment (pg 96) and the circumvention of
 password controls (Pg 417)6.  Bloombecker gives the example of how
 authority's reaction to the behaviour of small school children may
 represent society's ambivalent response to the computing activities it
 originally encourages.  Definitive ethical judgements can prove difficult
 to make in certain situations:

Think of the dilemma expressed unknowingly by the mathematics teacher who
 spoke of the enthusiasm her 9 and 10-year-old students exhibited when she
 allowed them to use the school's computers.  "They are so excited" she
 said, "that they fight to get onto the system.  Some of them even erase
 others' names from the sign-up lists altogether".  The idea that this was
 not good preparation for the students' moral lives seemed never to have
 occurred to her ... Unfortunately, both for society and for those that need
 the guidance, there is no standard within the computer community to define
 precisely when the playing has got out of hand.  If a student uses an hour
 of computer time without permission, one university computer department may
 consider it criminal theft of service, while another views it as an
 exercise of commendable ingenuity (Bloombecker 1990: 42).

 This ambiguous ethical status of some computing activities is due to the
 relatively recent advent of computing as an area of human endeavour; this
 has led to a lack of readily agreed-upon computing mores: "Indeed, if we
 were to devise a personality test designed to spot the computer criminal,
 the first and most difficult task would be to create a task that did not
 also eliminate most of the best minds who have made computing what it is"
 (Bloombecker 1990: 39).  There is the further complicating factor, that to
 some extent at least, society encourages "getting hooked" upon computing,
 since it is perceived as representing a beneficial outlet for intellectual
 endeavour.  We now turn to more specific examples of computing's ethical
 complexity.

6.4.2  Industry examples of blurred ethics

 There is often a lack of agreement even amongst computer professionals as
 to what constitutes the correct procedures with which to confront certain
 research and educational issues within computing.  A specific example of
 this lack of agreement is the debate caused by the publication of an
 article by Cohen, entitled "Friendly contagion:  Harnessing the Subtle
 Power of Computer Viruses" (1991).  In the article, Cohen suggests that the
 vendor of a computer virus prevention product should sponsor a contest
 encouraging the development of new viruses, with the provisos that the
 spreading ability of the viruses should be inherently limited, and that
 they should only be tested on systems with the informed consent of the
 systems owners.  Spafford responded with the charge that: "For someone of
 Dr Cohen's reputation within the field to actually promote  the
 uncontrolled writing of any virus, even with his stated stipulations, is to
 act irresponsibly and immorally.  To act in such a manner is likely to
 encourage the development of yet more viruses "in the wild" by muddling the
 ethics and dangers involved" (Spafford 1991: 3).  Furthermore, even the
 publication of "fixes" can be viewed in certain instances as an unethical
 act, leading to what has been previously described as the phenomenon of
 "security through obscurity".  Spafford argues that: "We should realize
 that widespread publication of details will imperil sites were users are
 unwilling or unable to install updates and fixes.  Publication should serve
 a useful purpose; endangering the security of other people's machines or
 attempting to force them into making changes they are unable to make or
 afford is not ethical" (Spafford 1990:12).
 The disagreement over some of the ethical questions thrown up by hacking
 was also in evidence in the aftermath of the Internet Worm when a debate
 raged amongst computer professionals as to the ethical and technical
 implications of the event.  The debate tending to support the above
 argument positing ethical sub-group variation and a general lack of
 clear-cut moral boundaries as typical of the modern ethical environment,
 especially when there are contrasting opinions as to the originating
 motivations behind specific acts.  Such a debate was reflected in the
 "Communications of the  Association of Computing Machinery (ACM)" Forum of
 Letters, where even the ACM's president received quite strident criticism
 for his position indicated in the title of his letter: "A Hygiene Lesson",
 that the Internet Worm could be viewed as beneficial in so far as it
 increased awareness of security practices.  The president's view was
 described by one contributor to the forum as, "a massive error in judgement
 which sends the wrong message to the world on the matters of individual
 responsibility and ethical behaviour ... [it] is inexcusable and an
 exercise in moral relativism" (Denning, Peter 1990: 523).  Similarly,
 another writer illustrates the disparate nature of the feelings produced by
 the Internet Worm incident when he pointedly remarks:

while Spafford praises the efficacy of the ''UNIX 'old boy' network" in
 fighting the worm, he does not explain how these self-appointed fire
 marshals allowed such known hazards to exist for so long ... If people like
 Morris and people like him are the greatest threat to the proper working of
 the Internet then we face no threat at all.  If, on the other hand, our
 preoccupation with moralizing over this incident blinds us to serious
 security threats and lowers the standards of civility in our community,
 then we will have lost a great deal indeed  (Denning, Peter 1990: pp 526
 +7).

6.4.3 Technology and ethics

 Underlying some of these problems with ethics has been the tendency
 identified by Spafford (1990) to "view computers simply as machines and
 algorithims, and ... not perceive the serious ethical questions inherent in
 their use" (Spafford 1990: 12).  Spafford points to the failure to address
 the end result of computing decisions upon people's lives, and hence the
 accompanying failure to recognise the ethical component of computing.  As a
 result, he argues, there is a subsequent general failure to teach the
 proper ethical use of computers:

Computing has historically been divorced from social values, from human
 values, computing has been viewed as something numeric and that there is no
 ethical concern with numbers, that we simply calculate values of 0 and 1,
 and that there are no grey areas, no impact areas, and that leads to more
 problems than simply theft of information, it also leads to problems of
 producing software that is also responsible for loss and damage and hurt
 because we fail to understand that computers are tools whose products ...
 involve human beings and that humans are affected at the other end
 (Spafford US interview).

 This is due to the fact that often the staff of computer faculties are
 uncomfortable with the subject, or don't believe it's important.  Their
 backgrounds are predominantly in mathematics or scientific theory and hence
 they don't adequately understand how practical issues of use may apply to
 computing.  Spafford suggests that engineering provides a more appropriate
 model of computing than science in so far as it addresses the human as well
 as the scientific dimensions.

Computer science is really, in large part an engineering discipline and that
 some of the difficulties that arise in defining the field are because the
 people who are involved in computing, believe it's a science and don't
 understand the engineering aspects of it.  Engineers, for a very long time,
 have been taught issues of appropriateness and ethics and legality and it's
 very often a required part of engineering curricula ... computing is more
 than just dealing with numbers and abstractions, it does in fact have very
 strong applications behind it, a very strong real-world component (Spafford
 US interview).

 The extent to which computing has a non-material dimension, however,
 constantly mitigates against Spafford's desire for computing to be
 ethically approached in a similar manner to an engineering discipline.
 There is a fundamental difference between the 'real world' and the 'virtual
 world' of computing, and it is this difference which makes the literal
 transposing of ethical judgements from the former to the latter, difficult,
 if not untenable.  The correct balance with which to transpose ethical
 judgements from one realm to another is debateable.

6.5 BOUNDARY FORMATION - ROLE OF THE MEDIA

 This section debunks some of the sensationalising, demonising, and
 mythologising of hacking that has occurred with the recent spate of books,
 articles and television programmes dealing with the issue.  It also
 corrects the overwhelming tendency of most of the writings on the subject
 of hacking to concentrate on the minutiae of the activities and life
 histories of hackers or their adversaries.  Frequently, but superficially,
 deep-rooted psychological abnormalities are offered as explanations for
 hacking activity, whilst ignoring the ethical and political implications of
 those acts.  The overall effect of the media portrayal of hacking, it could
 be suggested, is a continuation by other means of the CSI's project of
 stigmatisation and closure.

(i) 'Hacker best-sellers'

 Two examples of the tendency towards sensationalism are The Cuckoo's Egg by
 Clifford Stoll and Cyberpunk by Hafner and Markoff. An example of the many
 uses of hyperbole in their choice and tone of language is their
 consideration of the issues at stake in the hiring of a hacker for security
 work.  "But hire such a mean-spirited person?  That would be like giving
 the Boston Strangler a maintenance job in a nursing-school dormitory"
 (Hafner and Markoff, 1991: 40).  Both of these books made a large impact on
 the computing public and yet both seem self-indulgent in their reliance
 upon trivial and tangential details in the narration of different hacking
 episodes.  In The Cuckoo's Egg, for example, we are given various
 descriptions of the author's girlfriend and seemingly irrelevant details of
 their shared Californian lifestyle.  In Cyberpunk, many unsubstantiated
 conjectures are made as to the state of mind of the hacker.  Thus the
 authors write about Kevin Mitnick:

When Kevin was three, his parents separated. His mother, Shelly got a job as
 a waitress at a local delicatessen and embarked upon a series of new
 relationships.  Every time Kevin started to get close to a new father, the
 man disappeared. Kevin's real father was seldom in touch; he remarried and
 had another son, athletic and good-looking.  During Kevin's high school
 years, just as he was getting settled into a new school, the family moved.
 It wasn't surprising that Kevin looked to the telephone for solace (Haffner
 and Markoff 1991: 26).

 This somewhat arbitrary assignation of motivation leads the authors to
 label Kevin Mitnick as the "dark-side" hacker,  whereas their analysis of
 Robert Morris, author of the Internet Worm, is much less condemning despite
 the fact the latter was responsible for much more damage and man-hours of
 data-recovery time.

(ii)  Press and Television

 The media faces, in its reporting of computer security issues, the
 perennial problem of how to report technical issues in a both accurate and
 entertaining manner.  Generally, the media has tended towards reporting
 those stories that contain the highest degree of 'electronic lethality' and
 it has exaggerated the 'darkness' of hacking motives.  For example, a
 Channel Four television documentary "Dispatches" entitled its investigation
 of hacking "The day of the Technopath", whilst the February 1991 edition of
 GQ magazine concerned the growth of virus writers in Bulgaria and was
 called "Satanic Viruses".
 Along with the above two treatments of the computer security issue I will
 also look at a Sunday Correspondent article of the 17th December 1989
 entitled "A Bug in the Machine"  and part of the transcript of an episode
 of the U.S. current affairs/chat-show programme, "Geraldo", for a sample of
 media treatments of the hacking issue.  The television portrayals of the
 problem of computer security seem to be the most superficial and dependent
 upon sensationalising techniques.  Newspaper and magazine articles to give
 relatively thorough and accurate technical descriptions of what it is to
 hack/write viruses but still make disproportionate use of 'dark-side'
 imagery7.

"A Bug in the Machine"

 This article is an example of the tendency of the press to concentrate upon
 the "sexy" elements of computer security stories. It contains a cynical
 description of Emma Nicholson M.P.'s unsubstantiated claims that hacking
 techniques are used for terrorist purposes by the European Green movement
 amongst others and her emotive description of hackers as: " ... malevolent,
 nasty evil-doers who fill the screens of amateur users with pornography"
 (Matthews 1989: 39).  Yet whilst dispelling some of the alarmist tendencies
 of such claims, the example of a hacker chosen by the journalists is that
 of the "computer anarchist Mack Plug".  Apart from making their own
 unsubstantiated claim that "Nearly all hackers are loners" (a contention
 refuted by my interviews with groups of Dutch hackers), their description
 of his hacking activity seems to deliberately over-emphasise the more
 "glamorous" type of hacking at the expense of describing the more mundane
 realities and implications of everyday hacking:

At the moment he is hacking electronic leg tags. "I've got it down to 27
 seconds" he says, "All you have to do is put a microset recorder next to
 the tag and when the police call to check you're there, you tape the tones
 transmitted by the tag and feed them on to your answering machine.  When
 the cops call back again, my machine will play back those tones.  I'll have
 a fail-safe alibi and I can get back to hacking into MI5 (Matthews 1989:
 39).


Geraldo Programme8

 On September 30th 1991, the Geraldo chat-show focused on hacking.  It
 involved a presentation of various hacking cameo shots, one of which showed
 Dutch hackers accessing US Department of Defense computers with super-user
 status.  The studio section of the show involved an interview with Craig
 Neidorf (alias Knight Lightning), who underwent a court case in the U.S.
 for having allegedly received the source code of the emergency services
 telephone computer programs.  Also interviewed was Don Ingraham the
 prosecuting attorney in Neidorf's case.
 Below I include excerpts from the dialogue that ensued as an example of the
 extent to which hacking is presented in the media in a superficial,
 trivialised and hyperbolic manner.  In the introductory part of the show,
 excerpts from the film "Die Hard II" are shown in which terrorists take
 over the computers of an airport.  The general tone of the show was
 sensationalistic with one of the guest hackers Craig Neidorf being
 repeatedly called the "Mad Hacker" by Geraldo and Don Ingraham consistently
 choosing emotive and alarmist language as shown in the following examples:

Geraldo: Don, how do you respond to the feeling common among so many hackers
 that what they're doing is a public service; they're exposing the flaws in
 our security systems?

Don:  Right, and just like the people who rape a co-ed on campus are
 exposing the flaws  in our nation's higher education security.  It's
 absolute nonsense.  They are doing nothing more than showing off to each
 other, and satisfying their own appetite to know something that is not
 theirs to know.

And on the question of th
give, in 30 seconds, a worst case scenario of what could result from the
 activities of hackers.  To which he replies: "They wipe out our
 communications system.  Rather easily done.  Nobody talks to anyone else,
 nothing moves, patients don't get their medicine. We're on our knees."

Dispatches - "the day of the technopath"9

 Emma Nicholson M.P. interviewed in the Dispatches programme, states, "A
 really good hacker could beat the Lockerbie bomber any day, hands down"
 and, "Perhaps only a small fraction of the population dislikes the human
 race, but they do, and some of them are highly computer-skilled".
 The following is another example taken from the programme's voiced-over
 commentary:

Until now the computer hacker has been seen affectionately as a skilled
 technocrat, beavering away obsessively in his den, a harmless crank
 exploring the international computer networks for fun.  But today it's
 clear that any computer, anywhere, can be broken into and interfered with
 for ulterior motives.  The technocrat has mutated to the technopath ...
 government and business are reluctant to admit that they're fragile and
 vulnerable to such threats, frightened of either the loss of public
 confidence or of setting themselves up as targets for the technopaths who
 stalk their electronic alleyways.

(End of Part one of Chapter 6; Part II follows)

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End of Part 1 (of 2) Computer Underground Digest #9.59
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