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April, 1996 _EJournal_ Volume 6 Number 2 ISSN 1054-1055
There are 914 lines in this issue.
An Electronic Journal concerned with the
implications of electronic networks and texts.
760 Subscribers in 32 Countries
University at Albany, State University of New York
EJournal@Albany.edu
CONTENTS: [This is line 20]
HACKER FOLKLORE ON USENET:
A RHETORICAL APPROACH TO HACKER SUBCULTURE
by F. Sapienza
[sapief@rpi.edu]
Editorial Comment -- A Fifth-Anniversary Note [ at line 801 ]
Information about _EJournal_ [ at line 826 ]
About Subscriptions and Back Issues
About Supplements to Previous Texts
About _EJournal_
People [ at line 878 ]
Board of Advisors
Consulting Editors
*********************************************************************
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* This electronic publication and its contents are (c) copyright *
* 1996 by _EJournal_. Permission is hereby granted to give away *
* the journal and its contents, but no one may "own" it. Any and *
* all financial interest is hereby assigned to the acknowledged *
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* all distribution of _EJournal_. *
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======================================================================
HACKER FOLKLORE ON USENET: [line 52]
A RHETORICAL APPROACH TO HACKER SUBCULTURE
by F. Sapienza
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Department of Language, Literature
and Communication
[sapief@rpi.edu]
ABSTRACT
Hacker subculture greatly affects computer mediated communication
for all users. With the emergence of hacker influence comes
increasing interest in the subculture's values, norms, and rules.
Stories, and especially folk narratives, are often transmitters of
cultural presumptions. This essay argues that hacker stories offer
insight into the subculture, and it examines one hacker folk
narrative with the goal of learning how hacker identity, conduct,
and community are contested, negotiated, and reconstituted through
storytelling.
INTRODUCTION: THE HACKER INFLUENCE ON COMPUTER MEDIATED
COMMUNICATION
The modern growth of the Internet, the World Wide Web, and various
other online computer networks has given the "hacker subculture" an
unprecedented position of influence over computer mediated
communication. Connected to the nerve centers which make the whole
net "tick," hacker subculture views itself as having tremendous
control over the enterprise. As Martin Lea notes, hacker subculture
"is a community of experts who see themselves at the forefront of
social as well as technological change. This perception is strongly
and repeatedly communicated to one another and largely defines the
group in contradistinction from the rest of society" (Lea et al,
1992:93). No longer limited to clandestine programming circles, the
influence of hacker norms and values is felt in most every instance
of interaction with a computer.
[line 89]
Recent scholarship has contributed much information about the norms,
values, politics and morals of this culture (see Turkle, 1984; Levy,
1984; Perrolle, 1987; Roszak, 1986). While this research approaches
the hacker community from psychological, sociocultural and
historical perspectives, the research does not fully examine hacker
subculture from rhetorical perspectives.
One important rhetorical component of any culture is the art of
storytelling. Stories function as instruments which organize,
store, and transmit knowledge of experience. As Walter Ong states,
stories make up the bulk of what constitutes knowledge of human
experience:
Human knowledge comes out of time. Behind even the
abstractions of science, there lies narrative of the
observations on the basis of which the abstractions
have been formulated. . . . All of this is to say that
knowledge and discourse come out of human experience
and that the elemental way to process human experience
verbally is to give an account of it more or less as it
really comes into being and exists, embedded in the
flow of time (1982:140).
Narrative is an essential component of the construction and
transmission of human knowledge. Furthermore, narrative plays an
essential rhetorical role in persuading community members towards
certain modes of response and action (see Abrahams, 1968; Fisher,
1989). For that reason, any full analysis of a culture requires an
examination of its storytelling practices.
[line 119]
The aim of the present work is to enrich present scholarship about
hacker subculture through analysis of the rhetorical practices of a
"hacker" folk narrative. In particular, I will analyze one story
which appeared on the Usenet newsgroup comp.society.folklore in
October 1994. In the words of the group charter,
Comp.society.folklore is dedicated to the discussion of "computer
and Internet history and legends, both the truly legendary and
'urban legend' style legends" (Group Charter, 11/01/1994). Within
this group, participants exchange stories, jests, tall tales and
practical jokes. These stories typically involve interaction
between hackers and non-hackers, a situation whose contrasts and
confrontations bring the hacker identity into sharp focus. For this
reason, the stories on this newsgroup are excellent cultural
artifacts from which to observe this community. Through an analysis
of one of these stories, we will gain a better sense of how language
is valued by this community, of what elements, both formal and
substantive, are required to construct a hacker story, and of the
ways hacker identity, ideology and culture are represented and
reconstructed rhetorically through narrative.
HACKER ANTI-AUTHORITARIANISM AND TRICKSTER STORIES
The stories on comp.society.folklore, as David Sewell argues, serve
as "vehicles for solidifying the folk culture" of the electronic
frontier (1992). They are not poorly written anecdotes; they
contain a rich diversity of sophisticated narrative devices. This
fact reflects considerable rhetorical skill on the part of the
writers -- a skill not always associated with hackers. The
individual who relates the story is a frequent participant on Usenet
and considers himself a hacker. In his words, a hacker "is a person
who likes to get into the trenches, play around and see what they
can get the computer to do" (Dan Newcombe, personal correspondence,
4/5/95).
This hacker's story falls into a genre that Richard Bauman calls
"trickster" stories, the kind built on "complex structures"
involving "information management . . . backstage activity, frame
manipulation, fabrication, concealment, and differential access to
information about what is going on" (1986:35). The following
discussion of the story will reveal that the trickster story not
only entertains, but serves as moral discourse for the construction
of hacker ideals and norms.
[line 162]
It is important to note that tricks, pranks and practical jokes have
a long tradition within hacker subculture. The _New Hacker's
Dictionary_ identifies jokes as one of most favored forms of hacker
humor (Raymond, 1991:203). Dubrovsky notes, "Pranks, tricks and
games are benignly tolerated when not actually encouraged. . . .
Mild larceny, such as faking accounts, breaking codes, stealing
time, and copying proprietary software, is admired if not regarded
explicitly." (Dubrovsky, in Lea et al, 1992:93). The historical
origin of these behaviors is quite complex. In part, it is rooted
in the hacker ethic "Mistrust Authority -- Promote Decentralization"
(Levy, 1984:30). Theodore Roszak states that these ethics have a
connection with the "guerilla" hacker subculture of the late 1950s
and 1960s, a group of individuals who harbored "anti-establishment,
anti- war, pro- freedom, anti- discipline attitudes" (1986:142).
Roszak credits these guerilla hackers as having most affected the
political image and direction of the computer (138).
The hacker subculture's approach toward computer mediated
communication, and toward Usenet in particular, became the general
public's perception of the Internet: It is a non- authoritarian,
open system available for the free, uncensored exchange of ideas.
This value is articulated in the hacker dictum: "All information
should be free" (Levy, 1984:30). David Sewell outlines the dynamics
of this norm:
. . . information (both data and text) should flow
freely; authority over information systems should be
decentralized; the aesthetics of programming (or any
other creation; a poem can be a "good hack") is more
important than the material uses to which it may be
put. . . . The core characteristic of Net governance
is that conventions and rules emerge from community
practice and consensus rather than being imposed from
the top (Sewell, 1992).
The spread of these norms has generated considerable debate both
among popular media and legislative institutions. Recent obscenity
cases on Usenet fueled the debate over the U.S. Communications
Decency Act (S 314/HR 1004) in Congress, legislation whose prospect
has prompted heated discussion on Usenet and a campaign to stop
passage of the bill (see Campaign notice posted to comp.org.eff,
4/5/95).
[line 205]
Such heated debate about this issue is not surprising. Principal
opposition to regulation comes from a culture which prefers
"community practice" and "consensus" over hierarchical governance.
Passage of such legislation is viewed as a major threat to the
fundamental political philosophy of hacker subculture. Preference
for a more horizontal versus vertical form of government also
explains the importance of enacting tricks in the hacker subculture.
While they may function to amuse perpetrators at the expense of
victims, tricks also enforce hacker conduct. A community governed
by consensus depends on these tricks and the stories about them not
just for amusement but for its survival. The story that follows
illustrates one narrator's attempt to do just that.
A HACKER TRICKSTER NARRATIVE
The story to be analyzed is called "USENET/Internet Revenge." It
emerged in response to the following post which appeared on
comp.society.folklore in October 1994:
Strange question, but run with it: What's the best
case of someone getting even/exacting revenge on
someone else for something that happened on the
Internet, or where the revenge took place over the
Internet
Petty shit like mailbombing someone into oblivion need
not apply -- I'm curious what stories and accounts of
truly imaginative revenge you can recall.
Here is one respondent's revenge story:
Lets see. Back in college... (running on a VMS/CMS and
MUSIC system on an IBM 3090). There was one kid
(freshman) who had planted himself in the computer
center. He used two terminals and two accounts, one
for telnet, which he used to connect to Muds, and the
other for monitoring incoming e-mail, which was a
tedious job, as he subscribed to both AD&D-L and
STREK-L. It wouldn't have bothered a few of us that
much, but he insisted on using the nice terminals, that
had some extra keys, extra lines per screen, and did
graphics (IBM 3179G terminals). [line 247]
Also, the kid never went to classes, so we knew he must
be failing. We (being about 3 - 6 people) decided to
take it upon ourselves to help this kid pass for the
semester (and get him the hell off the terminals.)
Here are some of the things that we did that I can
remember:
1. Subscribed his account which he used for MUD's to
the AD&D, STREK-L, and FREETALK lists, plus a few other
ones. We thought it might annoy him out of there...no
such luck.
2. One of us self-proclaimed GPA saviours had access
to an account that could look up passwords, so she gave
us his password. We whipped up a program that looked
exactly like the CMS Telnet. It captured his MUD
characters name and password, sent that information to
another account for out later viewing, wiped out all
traces of itself, and caused the terminal to reset
itself, as if there was a really odd situation. He
then logged back in, telneted and all was fine.
3) Now, armed with this new info, we waited til he left
for dinner, which gave us a bit of time. We logged into
the MUD he used, and had his character go around
attacking random other players, who would fight back
and beat the living daylights out of him...or we'd have
his character "donate" all of his possessions to other
people. Anyway, we destroyed his character.
After he went through the shock of seeing what
happened, he actually found out who ran the mud, and
BEGGED them to restore his character, which they did.
It seems we can not win with him. [line 283]
4) Once again getting into his account, we fixed it
(using CMS/CP commands) so he couldn't connect to his
MUD's. What we did is defined the TAB character [sic]
to be . This way, everytime the system sees a . it
thinks it's a TAB. This is a major problem for
entering IP numbers or hostnames, as they translate to
127<tab>0<tab>0<tab>1 It would come back saying that
the address was not found. He filed a problem report
on this one. The sys. admin's response to this report,
after doing some poking around was : "Works for me...he
must have pissed someone off on the Internet who has
cut him off." Not the most correct, but she didn't
care if he couldn't get to his precious games.
Anyway, this brought us to the end of the first
semester. He failed out. He wrote an appeal letter,
which was accepted, and came back. Turns out he failed
all course, except one, which he got a D- in. He had
something like a .3 GPA.
The second semester, we had pretty much given up on
him, but came up with a few interesting things.
5) You were not allowed to have food or drinks in the
computer center. He always did (can't break from
mudding to eat/drink, now can we?). We would send him
e-mail from some of the student adminstrative accounts
we had (I worked there, as well as being a student.)
saying no food or drink allowed. He would look around
to see if he could see anyone watching him, but he
didn't see us (we were good at this.) He wouldn't
leave, so we'd send him a second warning, this time
threatining [sic] to call security. Sometimes he'd
stand right outside the door eating. Once he actually
threw his food away.
6) The best thing I remember. Nature called one night,
and he had gotten upto take a leak. It was about 8:30,
and most people were in class, in dinner, or just plain
inebriated. So he would run down the hall to the
bathroom. We walked over to his terminal and typed
'kill guard with sword'. Now, in MUDs, when you attack
automatic characters, they, and any other automatiac
[sic] characters usually attack back - very fierce.
When he got back, it told him that he had been killed.
He looked around frantically, and then logged off and
left (to cry?) He returned a couple hours later
though. [line 332]
A few other odds and ends:
1) the kid had the palest skin I've ever see
2) along with the greasiest hair
3) Once, the power had gone out in a big way (someone
fell into a transformer or something like that.)
Anyway, power was out for about 4 hours. Right after
it went out, he went running downstairs to where
operations was, and asked the operations manager if the
3090 was going to be OK. When she told me about it, she
was still laughing.
Well, that's as best as I can remember. This was a few
years ago.
Hmm...reminds me of a roommate I had once that failed
out. Spent most of his time playing nintendo/c-128
games. Skipped his Sociology final to solve "Super
Mario Brothers." For a 5 page final paper in Creative
Writing, he wrote a 43-page definition for a
programming language, which he pretty much copied right
out of the Turbo Pascal books.
Boy, does this stuff bring back memories. Makes me
wish I was back in school again.
(Dan Newcombe, posted 10/11/94 comp.society.folklore)
THE NARRATOR AS CONDUIT OF THE COLLECTIVE TRADITION
The narrator's first accomplishment is the construction of his
"voice" as a legitimate, responsible and trustworthy member of this
discourse community. His choice of certain vocabulary words index
his legitimate standing within the "hacker subculture." Terms such
as "IBM 3090," "VM/CMS," "CMS/CP" and "MUSIC," unfamiliar to most
novice users, are one means by which he constructs his identity as a
person who knows what he is talking about. The narrator also
implements what might be called a looking- back- with- an- air- of-
nostalgia motif, indicated by "Let's see . . . Back in college . .
." and "Boy, does this stuff bring back memories." This technique
is part of a time-honored tradition in hacker subculture. As
privileged members of the computer elite, they often wax nostalgic
about such things as the "old Arpanet days" (posted to
comp.society.folklore, 10/16/94). Finally, the narrator adopts the
"voice" of the person who originally requested the submission of
stories by dropping subjects from sentences, a device called the
"pro-drop" parameter (Ferrara et al, 1991:19). Thus we have
sentences which begin like, "Subscribed his account..." and "Skipped
his sociology final..."
[line 381]
The borrowing of the requester's voice points out how community
rules emerge as the result of discursive interaction between
participants. When the narrator drops the subject, he adopts what
he perceives is a legitimate way to articulate this kind of story.
That legitimacy is reinforced, if not called forth, by the previous
poster to the newsgroup. The fluidity of electronic discourse is
amenable to the kind of rule-sharing that goes on here. Electronic
texts emerge as the collective product of the entire discourse
community rather than of one individual. As David Sewell points
out, the development of Usenet stories "resembles the evolution of
epic in an oral culture: any individual participant is free to
alter, supplement, or redirect the narrative, but only those
innovations that are accepted by the community survive" (Sewell,
1992:603).
Usenet is one arena of computer mediated communication in which this
kind of participatory process fosters the creation of new texts.
The proper rules for discursive interaction and, to some extent, the
direction of a particular narrative, emerge from the more fluid
aspects of the medium. The text is not a "closed system" in the
sense that it alone relates a single-minded authorial voice whose
meaning is necessarily "immanent" upon its completion. Rather, as
Douglas Brent argues, the "sliding together of texts in the
electronic writing space... [calls for] significantly more effort to
keep the ownership of the ideas separate" (1991). The text is owned
and sanctioned by the community, and the meaning of that text is
shared as it is reinterpreted and reconstituted. In this sense, one
can, as Richard Bauman argues, view "the item of folklore as the
collective product and possession of society at large, the performer
...[in] the role of passive and anonymous mouthpiece or conduit for
the collective tradition" (1986:8).
FOLKLORIC NARRATIVE AS MORAL DISCOURSE [line 414]
Let us now turn to a structural analysis of the story. As mentioned
earlier, the story falls into a genre of narratives called
"trickster" stories. The formal structure of trickster stories is
comprised of these elements:
1) A description of some user who is misusing the
system.
2) A description of the backstage machinations of
constructing the trick(s).
3) The implementation of the trick(s).
4) Result of the trick(s).
5) An "evaluative statement" (Bauman, 1986:35; Labov,
1972:363).
This story is composed of many shorter trick stories that fit within
the larger trickster structure. The description phase occurs in the
second and third clauses (the "freshman," "planted himself in the
computer center," etc). Next comes the description of several
tricks (subscribing to the multiple lists, resetting the terminal
and then destroying his character, etc.). Occasionally, the
narrator fuses the backstage and implementation elements when the
trick fails (e.g., "no such luck," "all was fine"), while in the
more successful tricks, the narrator describes the result in greater
detail ("BEGGED," filing the report," looking around "frantically").
Interestingly enough, none of the tricks succeed in getting the
"kid" "off the terminals," or in helping him to "pass for the
semester." Thus the evaluative statements ("It seems we cannot win
with him," "pretty much given up on him") function not so much to
glorify the success of the tricksters but rather to heighten the
impossibility of the task involved. The story does not diminish the
effectiveness of the tricks or the craftiness of the tricksters, but
rather suggests that their ineffectiveness is due more to the
unusual obsession of the "kid."
[line 458]
Indeed, the physical and behavioral labels cast the narrator's
fellow student as an "Other." The casting as other is also
accomplished through paralinguistic means. The use of brackets to
distance the "(freshman)" from the narrator is a device that prompts
readers to recall cultural stereotypes about the ineptitude and
immaturity of college freshman. The "freshman" is not equal to the
narrator and therefore deserves less humane treatment. The line is
now drawn between the heroes and villains: The greasy-haired
pale-skinned computer nerd battles the "self-proclaimed GPA saviors"
on the battlefield called university computing lab X.
Casting the "kid" as a "greasy haired" Other is ironic in light of
the fact that most hackers, as Sherry Turkle's work suggests, are
conceived as "ugly" men:
"Dress, personal appearance, personal hygiene, when you
sleep and when you wake, what you eat, where you live,
whom you frequent -- there are no rules [for hackers].
At MIT, that community is known as 'computer hackers.'
Elsewhere, they are known as 'computer wizards,'
'computer wheels,' 'computer freaks,' or 'computer
addicts'" (Turkle, 1984:213).
Turkle points out that this indexes a greater social narrative which
identifies the mechanical with ugliness, with the unaesthetic.
Thus, "In the case of seeing computation as ugly, as perversion, it
is carried by taking a special community within the computer-science
world and constructing the image of the 'computer person' around it"
(1984:200). Turkle notes that at MIT, for instance, this cultural
narrative is parodied through the yearly ritual of the Ugliest Man
on Campus Contest.
The freshman eats, breathes, and lives the computer. For him, as
for many hackers, the computer is not just a tool for the
accomplishment of an end. The interaction with that tool is the end
in itself (Turkle, 200). The "computer hacker" of this story sits
in contradistinction from the hacker who is narrating the story.
Like the self-mocking parody instigated by the MIT Ugliest Man
Contest, this narrative parodies hacker conduct at the risk of
mocking the hacker narrator himself. The narrative thus becomes the
focal point of tension, the battleground on which hacker identity is
contested, negotiated, and reconstructed.
[line 493]
The trickster story also functions rhetorically to convey values
about conduct. It conveys these values in part through entertaining
its audience. Thus, the playful dimensions of the story are not
mere embellishments but integral to the success in conveying the
morals involved. It is in this sense that folkloric narratives like
this one can be seen as rhetorical. As Abrahams notes, the
narrative:
"demands a recognition of an intimate sympathetic
relation between a proposed solution of a recurrent
societal problem and the movement involved in the
artistic projection of that problem. [This linkage is
made] not at the expense of the play element of
culture, but rather by insisting on the essential
utility of the 'playing-out'" (1968:168).
Playfulness serves not as an additive but as an essential ingredient
in the moral import of this passage. Because of the playful
portrayal of these problems, and the moral advice proposed through
their rhetorical enactment, audience members are moved towards
certain modes of response.
THE NARRATIVE AS A CREDIBLE INSTRUMENT FOR MORALIZING
For the story to be a credible conveyer of its message, its audience
needs to perceive that the elements and events hang together
coherently. To accomplish this, the narrator has to organize and
present his narrative within a framework of values his audience
recognizes -- in this case, values regarding the proper rhetorical
construction of such a narrative. In other words, the "true" story
in this case will emerge from the effective mixing of its "play"
elements and its "literal" elements. This in turn calls for good
"performance," a characteristic associated with oral narration but
relevant to the fluidity of electronic discourse. Richard Bauman
explains: Performance
[line 529]
represents a transformation of the basic
referential... uses of language. In other words, in
artistic performance of this kind, there is something
going on in the communicative interchange which says to
the auditor, "interpret what I say in some special
sense; do not take it to mean what the words alone,
taken literally, would convey."(1977:9)
Good narratives arise from the effective mixture of aesthetic and
literal elements, so as to create a coherent and recognizable, and
thus credible, set of relationships. But the creation of these
relationships and the events depicted depends on how well the story
is performed. Thus, again, as Bauman states:
the narrated event, as one dimension of a story's
meaning, evoked by formal verbal means in the narrative
text, is in this respect emergent in performance,
whatever the external status of the narrated event may
be, whether it in some sense 'actually occurred' or is
narratively constructed by participants out of cultural
knowledge of how events are -- or are not, or may be --
constituted in social life (1986:6).
The author of this story recognizes the relationship between
"performing" a good narrative and the actual, "literal" nature of
the events. In a private communication, he indicated that he
shifted events and embellished characters. He mentioned that the
kid who got a D- was perhaps his roommate. Furthermore, the
freshman had not "BEGGED them to restore his character" but "just
sent an e-mail." And for event "3" of his narrative, when the group
destroyed the freshman's MUD character while he was at dinner, the
author indicated that the episode might have occurred at a different
time: "There were various times we were on as his character, so I
may have something listed here that we did at a later time"
(4/5/95).
[line 565]
Despite these embellishments, the author told me that for the most
part he considered the events as "true," that he preferred "to
remain factual about most things" (4/5/95). His response indicates
that his narrative, while true "in spirit," is not necessarily an
absolutely accurate account of the event. The author felt free to
shift temporal elements and embellish his descriptions of the "kid."
These choices were intended to enhance the aesthetic value of the
work; they recognize that the "truth" is a function of the interplay
of aesthetic and literal elements. A "new" event was reorganized by
and emerged from the performance of the narrative, and it then
became the "true" event.
The credibility of the events in the narrative affects its
rhetorical effectiveness. For instance, if audience members are to
properly place the "freshman" as the villain and the "GPA saviors"
as the heroes, events must hang together in a recognizable, coherent
way. This is because the primary aim of the story is to present an
allegorical problem situation that calls forth "sympathetic" -- to
borrow Abraham's term -- responses from the audience, not to
didactically prescribe a set of behaviors. When it is easy to
recognize and associate itself with the story's principal characters
and events, the audience is likely to accept and adopt the conduct
that the story validates.
MAKING A CASE FOR ANTINORMATIVE CONDUCT
A buried irony in this story is that the tricks are viewed
positively even though they did not succeed. The narrator told me
in a private e-mail message that the purpose of the tricks was "one
of saving this kid." The "save" motive raises an important issue
with respect to hacker tricks. Earlier, I mentioned that tricks are
traditionally regarded as important cultural artifacts of hacker
subculture. But such tricks have been identified as "adolescent"
and linked to forms of antinormative conduct ranging from flaming
(Lea et al, 1992:93) to computer crime (Perrolle, 1987:97; Stoll,
1991).
But the association with criminal and antinormative conduct does not
sit well with most hackers. Those interviewed by Sherry Turkle
expressed dismay "that their vocation has been tainted with the
image of 'computer crime'" (Turkle, 1984:233). The author of the
narrative we are considering bristles at the association of
criminality with hacking:
[line 609]
The media seems to think that a hacker is someone who
steals creditc [sic] cards, breaks into computers,
etc... I guess in a sense that is hacking as it is
pushing the limits of what can be done, but personally
I tend to think of them as assholes. Hacking should be
non-destructive, except perhaps to your own stuff (ie.
you shouldn't cancel someones [sic] credit cards just
to see if you could do it, but if you happen to fry you
[sic] video card while playing around, that really
doesn't hurt anyone else (Dan Newcombe, personal
correspondence, 4/5/95).
This declaration strongly implies that hackers by and large are
aware of and able to function within accepted social boundaries.
But inside their own, smaller community they want to enforce their
own norms by their own methods -- including the kinds of
"tricks" narrated above.
I have already discussed the linkage to guerilla hacker norms
informed by the anti- establishment atmosphere of the 1960s. Other
relatively "horizontal" organizing constructs include Usenet and the
Unix operating system. Usenet was created to let the developers of
Unix share programming ideas, problems, and solutions. Both Usenet
and Unix were to serve as environments "around which a fellowship
could form" (Unsworth, 1995:6).
The desire for fellowship mirrors the technical organization of the
Unix system itself. Unix does not need rigid, hierarchical
operating structures like those found in the MS-DOS system. It is
much more "open," permitting users a wide range of alternatives for
modification and customization of the operating environment. As one
of the original developers of Unix noted, Unix grew from the ground
up rather than "by some major management figure sitting at his desk"
(Unsworth 1995:5).
[line 644]
The absence of hierarchical rigidity is clearly a valued
characteristic of hacker subculture. And flexible, "horizontal"
social organization requires a set of self- governed procedures for
policing improper hacker behavior. Such procedures are illustrated
in the Hacker Narrative. Casting the freshman as an Other indicates
that he is the transgressor of proper computer behavior, and that
the narrator is justified in trying to "save" him. Moving the
transgressor outside the sphere of hacker fellowship is the
equivalent of putting the dunce cap on him and sending him to the
front of the room. He is placed in a "liminal" -- an in-between --
state, separated from the good hackers (i.e., the GPA-saviors).
Because he is no longer a fellow hacker colleague, tricking him with
the hope of "reaggregating" him into normal hacker conduct is
appropriate behavior. (The terms "liminal" and "reaggregating" are
borrowed from Victor Turner's _The Ritual Process_ (1969).)
Coming to the defense of these pranks implies awareness that they
might be perceived by outsiders as wrong, even though the hacker
subculture may be tolerant of them. The trickster element of hacker
subculture must be understood in terms of the sociocultural need to
preserve their community. The stories about such tricks, with their
implications about who is Out and whose behavior deserves applause,
are a gentle but powerful part of the "enforcement" structure of the
"horizontal" hacker subculture.
The fact that the story is narrated within a kind of "playground"
frame of language (delimited by the "USENET/Revenge" thread) further
suggests that the narrator and audience recognize that such trickery
is appropriate only in certain special contexts. But if someone
violates the context, then, Who knows? -- perhaps that person too
will become the next Outsider in a USENET/Revenge narrative.
CONCLUSION [line 677]
This paper argues that stories like the Hacker Narrative are
essential artifacts for examining the hacker subculture. Through
examination of these stories, one comes to a fuller understanding of
how hacker identity, conduct, and community are contested,
negotiated, and reconstituted. Such understanding is important
because the hacker subculture greatly affects network environments
for all of us, not just hackers. Even though there has been much
attention to the psychological and historical dimensions of hacker
subculture, there is a need for more analysis of the linguistic
norms of this culture, and especially its storytelling.
This particular narrative shows that "pranks" need to be understood
within the larger sociocultural ethos of proper computer-using
behavior, as defined by the hacker subculture. Rather than as
immature jokesters, the "guardians of the enterprise" see themselves
as members of a horizontally governed community and therefore both
responsible and authorized to correct misbehavior. In this sense,
the story's "mild larceny" is far from illegal within the hacker
subculture. Such trickery, and the stories about it, are necessary
for its survival.
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Stoll, Cliff. _The Cuckoo's Egg_. New York: Pocket Books, 1990.
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F. Sapienza
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Department of Language, Literature
and Communication
[sapief@rpi.edu] [line 789]
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[ This essay in Volume 6, Number 2 of _EJournal_ (April, ]
[ 1996) is (c) copyright _EJournal_. Permission is hereby ]
[ granted to give it away. _EJournal_ hereby assigns any and ]
[ all financial interest to F. Sapienza. This note must ]
[ accompany all copies of this text. ]
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SENIOR EDITORS - April, 1996 [line 886]
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