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