Here's a question I'd love to get input from on this forum: are the hackers we know and love/hate today truly 'cyberpunk', or not?

By my definition of cyberpunk (technology-driven anarchy and individualism) they are. Hackers use technology as a means to express their individualism (making a name for themselves), and/or fighting against what they perceive as oppression and injustice (anarchy).

I even dare to say that Gibson's works is part of the fundament of the current hacker-community. Gibson's earliest cyberpunk novels have helped shape this counterculture.

Any thoughts on this?

Cheers,
- Adamus

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"But I have dreamed a dreary dream
Beyond the Isle of Skye;
I saw a dead man win a fight
And I think that man was I."
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The classic version of the lone anarchist leaning techie type is what is dead. From with the plethora of attacks we hear about on the "news" and the stories of armies of vurus authors and "hackers" from the old eastern block nations, all that has really changed is the scale. Even in Nueromancer WG describes cyberwar, and now in the US we have Air Force "squadrons" of cyberwarriors.

318th Information Operations Group

Undoubtedly other nations have this as well. Is this cyberpunk? I think so, just increased in scale. There are many professional "computer cowboys" out there to perform just about any service. Instead of "making runs" they "provide solutions." The numbers and the nomenclature have changed, but the core of cyberpunk to me has always been the realization of an ocean of information, almost another dimension most easily comprehended for me with the ocean metaphor, with the same kind of chaotic existance. We scan, we use, we try to control this ocean without success. Wars are fought upon it, and fortunes won or lost upon it. Lives are dependent on it. The anarchist leaning techie types were the first to really percieve this "infospace" I think for two reasons:

1. they are the type that loves to explore and learn as much as they can, and come up with innovative and useful things.

2. they are the type that loves cool, new things, different ways of expressing oneself, new cultural memes to replace rigid oppressive old ones.

Usually a combination of both. But now, cyberpunk has evolved, and as I've said elsewhere, our definition needs to evolve with it. The "hacker" of today is a different beast then that of the eighties but no less cyberpunk. It amazes me how many man hours are given across the globe by folks on various project for no other reason than coolness or usefulness. The interaction with the infospace is still there and increasing measurably all the time. Another aspect of cyberpunk that a lot of people don't really think about in their definition is the environment around the "punks" in all of the fiction, there is a whole technologicly activated world for the characters to exist in. this world is just beginning to noticeably come to fruition. All of those people are part of cyberpunk too. I know I am rambling now. Just my opine.

Dead

...and the ICE is starting to freeze hard. It's already a crime to hack your own machine, or entertainment device. To try to dissasemble some software to suit your needs. Soon, all inter device connections will have to be, by law, digital, encripted and under the companies control. Digital TV transmissions will carry an anti-copy bug.
Sure, many newfangled copy systems get defeated everyday, sometimes with just a marker So maybe there's hope.

Without getting into the hacker/cracker/phr34ker/etc distinction, it seems to me that the punks today are the ones pissing off the megacorps and governments by making it widely known just how fragile their protection schemes are. DeCSS, the marker-on-the-disc trick, any number of (often non-constructive) Micros*ft hacks, Russians being tossed in jail by the Adobe police...Anti-establishment with a purpose. Virus writers, by contrast, are just sitting in their rooms giving themselves homemade tattoos with disposable lighters and ballpoint pens.

Neuromancer's cowboys were a skilled elite. 99% of virus writers don't rate a second glance on actual skill, because as we see in the world at large, destructive ends are always more easily accomplished by the less talented. So I think that there are hackers out there today in the cyberpunk tradition--some of them work office jobs for pay, and some of them work for free, for the street cred. A number of them do both.

Just as punk music got co-opted by the music labels, today we see that most grand of hacker projects, Linux, under a dozen brand names...

It's hard, very hard, to try and look out into the world without pity for those who know only what they've heard about this "culture" that has been increasingly encroached upon by the powers that be. I've given up trying to explain things, sometimes their eyes are glazed over before i can speak the first word, as if they didn't really want to hear an answer.

There are those out there, living that lone lifestyle, where poking and prodding though the data is what they do because they're skilled and they enjoy it. The more visible variations are the "computer cowboys", who use these skills of theirs for both profit and furthering whatever cause they see fit.

The time passes, the years change, but the people are basically the same. Look deep enough and they've always been there.

http://www.rootcompromise.org

The one thing I've been waiting to see is a hack that really rocks the boat, a mega version of the stunt on the otherwise forgettable "Hackers" movie: something like Bill Gates's state "donating" a couple dozen millions to the EFF, a few Wall Street brokerage firms' assets diluting into a whole third world countrie's population savings account, dirty laundry out for all to see on some high-level characters, a few Top Secret dossiers spreaded all over the net... hopefully somebody somewhere is working on those right now.

Have there been some exploits of such caliber already accomplished? I mean, other than webpage defacing, reporters lives becoming hell for not stating the facts, egg on the face of companies due to their "secure and trustworthy" software crumbling after some well placed prods and compromised anticopying schemes, not much has been heard in that regard... or rather, have they been covered-up?

There are many others who do not belong to the phracker community nor do they have 3L33T 5K1LLZ.

I suppose you need to be tech savvy to qualify as a cyberpunk. But the more defining quality may be the 'attitude' and the individual's relation to establishment, power and technology and all those mambo jambo.

If they can satisfy at least 75% of the creed spelled out in the Cyberpunk Manifesto
, they should be able to wear the t-shirt that proclaims "CERTIFIED - CYBERPUNK".

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Where is the Disneyland?

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Originally posted by fuldog:
The one thing I've been waiting to see is a hack that really rocks the boat, a mega version of the stunt on the otherwise forgettable "Hackers" movie: something like Bill Gates's state "donating" a couple dozen millions to the EFF, a few Wall Street brokerage firms' assets diluting into a whole third world countrie's population savings account, dirty laundry out for all to see on some high-level characters, a few Top Secret dossiers spreaded all over the net... hopefully somebody somewhere is working on those right now.

Have there been some exploits of such caliber already accomplished? I mean, other than webpage defacing, reporters lives becoming hell for not stating the facts, egg on the face of companies due to their "secure and trustworthy" software crumbling after some well placed prods and compromised anticopying schemes, not much has been heard in that regard... or rather, have they been covered-up?

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Captain Zap definitely gets my vote....
Truly a Robin hood hack...Screw the corporate system, and give back to the people, all in one shot. Exposing greed is always a good hack

So, Cyberpunks ought to be Left-leaning, either that or be ofthe Anarchic bent?

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Where is the Disneyland?

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Originally posted by big.brother:
So, Cyberpunks ought to be Left-leaning, either that or be ofthe Anarchic bent?

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I think the answer varies from person to person.
I guess if we were to bring out the "hat" imagery
I am a grey hat supporter...I don't see it in terms of left or right. I have a problem with corruption. Might makes right, and these headless corporations have next to no accountability. They control legislation, media, and technology.
If we were to use the whole mp3 fiasco as an example, I think musicians have the right to protect their music, and profit from it. On the other hand, I think giving the RIAA free reign over your computer because you have the potential to steal is more then wrong. I think lying about your production cost to seem like the victim is wrong.
I don't shed a tear when organizations like that run into trouble.

On the other hand, If you look at businesses like google, or RedHat, so far they appear to be conducting business in a fair and smart manner. I like companies who draw the line at what they will do for profitability.


I think no matter what side your on, you are both wrong AND right.

Is an individual hacking a corrupt corporation wrong? Yes.

Is a corporation hacking an individual, or imposing on that individual's fundamental liberties wrong? Yes.


Most people say who are you to judge? Everything in life gets judged! The only difference is whether its your judgement or someone elses.


The black hatters are twinks, they don't offer anything constructive, and they don't have any sort of motivation other then destructiveness and greed.

The white hatters are the only ones who are "clean" in this matter, but where do they draw the line? There comes a point where even a white hatter can "have enough" and then they are no longer white

There is no habitable place on the planet left anymore to live and let live. Its better to draw the lines and fight for whats yours.


You don't even need to hack to do it.
The government can't spy on your transmissions if you encrypt them.
Microsoft can't track you, and cripple your experience if you don't use their products.
Companies can't pollute the earth if you don't buy their products.

It all comes down to doing what you think is right, regardless of how futile it seems. If you are lucky, enough like minded people will do the same and you can make a dent in the world. If not,
you die without shame.

Politics don't work. Any group over 7 people strong is going to have problems getting along. Forget left or right, its bigger then that. Democracy doesn't work, socialism doesn't work, anarchy doesn't work. The only thing you can do is stay dynamic. Stagnation is death.

I think that funky talking hat from the Harry Potter movie would be able to tell their political orientation...

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Where is the Disneyland?

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Originally posted by big.brother:
I think that funky talking hat from the Harry Potter movie would be able to tell their political orientation...

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ROFL!!! Wonderful imagery...

Do I get a nifty little party scarf and patch to wear?:P

Most Hackers would ask a different question, probably more important- "Modern-day Cyberpunks: Hackers or not?"

Hackerdom is both older and more mature than the Cyberpunk movement. It dates back to the sixties, when the foundation stones of the current Hacker subculture were laid - the network was being built, Unix and C were introduced, for increasing availability of computers for personal use that didn't require timesharing...

I'm talking about the Hacking expounded by the Jargon file (catb.org/esr/jargon), typified by Torvalds and Stallman, that built the Linux kernel and the tools that support it, and the massive codebase that builds on it. That set up the Free Software Foundation, that releases code and writes open protocols for interoperability that mean you don't have solve the same problem and write the same code twice. So you can work on more interesting, more important things.

You can have the 'attitude', you can spout crap about the man, the system, the metaverse and whatever else, but if you can't back it up with action (specifically, learn the system, write code), then what use is rambling on? It's shallow, it's hacker groupie-ism (sp?), and it helps no one. I mentioned the Jargon file, it's probably worth looking up the entries for 'Cyberpunk' and 'Wannabee'.

I know this seems like I'm trolling, but that's not my intention. It just seems to me that the posters above have a pretty thin view of the term 'Hacker'.

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It just seems to me that the posters above have a pretty thin view of the term 'Hacker'.

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thus, i perceive that the 'h4)(or' tribe is a sub-group within the 'cyberpunk'community.

there are many others who are not 3L33T, yet embrace the ethos of being 'cyber'punk - manipulating technology from the user's (rather than the engineer's) end to free and distribute 'Information'...

(cyberpunk: a liberal individual who find his/her/its own use for technology?)

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I am addicted to IceRed

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Originally posted by sobriquet:
It just seems to me that the posters above have a pretty thin view of the term 'Hacker'.

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Bingo. These people wouldn't know the real thing if it bit them in the ass. Hackers are not tame creatures. We don't dance at your beck & call.

Why should we do for you, that which you are unwilling to do for yourselves?

s/n:r

I take it you haven't heard mudge's current where abouts.

I don't think the untamed spirit thing flies.
Putting a hacker in a suit, and a cube doesn't make them any less of a hacker. Also, people 'do for others what they can not do themselves' because thats how civilized society works. Apply the help yourself logic to any other industry and you would have a severe crisis.

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Originally posted by Tinesthai:
I take it you haven't heard mudge's current where abouts.

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Leave him out of it.

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I don't think the untamed spirit thing flies. Putting a hacker in a suit, and a cube doesn't make them any less of a hacker.

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This is wrong in so many ways I don't know where to start. You speak from ignorance.

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Also, people 'do for others what they can not do themselves' because thats how civilized society works.

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"Will not" not "cannot".

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Apply the help yourself logic to any other industry and you would have a severe crisis.

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Who the hell said anything about industry? Stop embarrassing yourself, please.

s/n:r

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Originally posted by guest:
...Stop embarrassing yourself, please.

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And you, please stop polluting an otherwise civil discussion by turning to personal attacks instead of actual argumentation to make your point.

Cheers,
- Adamus

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"But I have dreamed a dreary dream
Beyond the Isle of Skye;
I saw a dead man win a fight
And I think that man was I."
---------------------------

'Guest' is being a little, well vigorous, but he is correct. Mudge? I respect L0pht as hackers, they do worthy work (Peekabooty etc), and have given a lot to the community. But such things aren't the be all and end all of hacking.

Take the GNU software, the Linux kernel etc. Do you seriously think that all those people are hardcore cyberpunks? Most would be offended at the suggestion. In most hacker circles, the term connotes lightweight poseur, who couldn't _do_ anything with the technology they fetishize if they wanted to.

I recommended above having a look at the Jargon file. Do. Take a look at the entries for 'Hacker', 'Cyberpunk', and 'Wannabee'. Have a look at the appendices, particularly 'A Portrait of J. Random Hacker.' Most of ESRs' site is worth looking at in this respect.

Again, no flamage intended.

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Take the GNU software, the Linux kernel etc. Do you seriously think that all those people are hardcore cyberpunks? Most would be offended at the suggestion. In most hacker circles, the term connotes lightweight poseur, who couldn't _do_ anything with the technology they fetishize if they wanted to.

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I see your point and I agree
I didn't bring up Mudge as a paragon of hacking.
I intended for him to be an example for good hacking spirit. A smart guy who makes the energizer bunny cringe.

As for the guest, Its ok. It appears as if they are abit fixated on the clothes making the man.