Hacking has never NOT been about social justice
https://twitter.com/2600/status/920068953325662208
di seguito un articolo dall'ultimo numero di 2600
https://store.2600.com/collections/2010-2015/products/autumn-2017
Inseparable: The Intersectionality of Hacking and Politics
by Josephus
Trigger Warning/Disclaimer: This is not an easy topic for someone who does not
have an open mind and only likes to be linear and stay in a bubble. We will
touch on points of racism, the prison industrial complex, media control,
politics, and some other stuff that makes people squirm or, as I like to call
it: “grown folks’ business.” Understanding how all these things contribute to
this discussion and doing it in a nuanced way is essential for a way forward
for all of us, so if this isn’t for you, read it anyway. You might learn
something and crack open that closed mind of yours! Also, the views here are my
own and not my employer’s, organizations I support, so on and so forth.
Anyways, on with the show!
In the Winter 2016-17 issue of 2600 and on Off the Hook , the election
(naturally, since this was a presidential election year in the U.S.) took up
much of the discussion on the air and in the letters section of the magazine.
However, this kind of banter is not unusual for the hacker, computer science,
information security, and the wider technology community, as what goes on in
government tends to have an effect in our community. No matter our specialty
(lock picking, code breaking, social engineering, etc.), we are all hackers!
Similar to the concept that there is no such thing - from a scientific point
anyways - as “race” (black, white, brown, beige, etc.), we are all human
beings, yet we are all caught in the crossfire of politics. For better or
worse, all of us are caught up in the political machinations of the communities
we live in - our sexual orientation, the schools we go to, the color of our
skin, and even the jobs we have are, by their nature, a political action.
Whether hackers like it or not, the actions of hacking and hackers are
inseparable from the politics they intentionally or unintentionally confront.
Keepin’ it 100 on Intersectionality
We do not live in a binary world so, to frame it in red or blue state, 0 or 1,
yes or no, and New York style pizza or Chicago deep dish does not address the
more nuanced and complex issues of life. To take that deeper look, we will use
the sociological framework of intersectionality and apply it to hacking and
political activity so we can see why those two are, so to speak, joined at the
hip. Intersectionality is a sociological framework to understand and fix issues
on a multidimensional - as opposed to singular - basis through multiple
viewpoints from people of different genders, sexual orientation, racial
categories, and beliefs. The simplistic view of an issue (like racism or
climate change) is OK for “polite” discussion, but a narrow scope is a poor
substitute for a more robust and honest discussion.
Pretending that hacking and politics should be segregated, as if one doesn’t
have an effect on the other, is nothing more than “burying [y]our head[s] in
the sand.” To paraphrase a popular meme: “One does not simply separate hacking
from politics.”
Hacking (the action and culture) is a political action by its definition as we
have a clear disdain for authority and like to mess with stuff others simply
just use. Politics (for the sake of conversation) is about norms at the local
level all the way to the national and international level that produce a steady
stream of fairly predictable results. Needless to say, when those “evil”
hackers in our community have the gall to oppose the government having
“backdoors” to our digital lives or opposing “good” legislation like SOPA and
PIPA to stop “criminals” and “terrorists” from making money, we are committing
a political act. Not to be Hobbesian or anything, but let’s be real about this:
Whether or not we want to believe it or not, politics and hacking are about the
same thing (in this context) and that is power through action.
Intersectionality in Action: Privacy vs. National Security
Politics and hacking are about extracting the maximum amount of power for the
(real or perceived) greater good. Whether the problem is how to disrupt
terrorist plots or keep criminals from stealing our hard-earned money, there is
a public “good” that we want to accomplish for ourselves and society in
general. To illustrate the intersectionality of hacking and politics, we can
easily look no further than 2016’s legal spat between Apple and the FBI over
the iPhone belonging to one of the two shooters in the December 2015 San
Bernardino terrorist attack.
I assume that most readers of this fine publication have heard about this spat,
so I will get down to the intersectionality aspect of this incident. However,
if you haven’t heard or need a refresher, check my references below, then come
back to this section.
The premise of the FBI’s court order - which used an archaic and often abused
piece of legislation from 1789 called the “All Writs Act” - was national
security (an abused term in and of itself) due to the possibility of crucial
evidence possibly on the phone of one of the two shooters, Syed Farook. Despite
the “national security” argument from FBI director James “Backdoor” Comey and
other anti-encryption spokespeople like the New York City District Attorney Cy
“Sidedoor” Vance, Apple said no on privacy grounds and the potential damage to
its brand from angry customers (and shareholders). Most hackers, privacy
advocates, and our political supporters saw this as a BS reason for the FBI to
get a legal win to create a standing they could use in court to backdoor
encrypted phones. In the end, the FBI backed off when they bought access to the
phone from an Israeli company called Cellebrite or “professional hackers” using
an unknown zero-day got into the iPhone.
Where’s the Intersections?
Given the many cases of hacking and politics intersecting within the last two
to three decades (e.g. people versus the MPAA concerning having legal access to
their DVDs), I used this case because it was (1) recent and (2) showed a clear
and relevant number of intersections between hacking and politics. For brevity,
here are two of the many intersections in this case:
Government vs. Privacy - In 2015, I had the “pleasure” of attending a
conference in which both men spoke about how they were “going dark” due to
encrypted cell phones and used “national security” and “law and order” BS to
encourage the people there to support their cause of backdooring encrypted
phones. This fantasy of government types has been around for over 20 to 30
years now and is detailed in many past issues of 2600 .
Dog Whistle Politics/Policy - When someone these days uses “law and order” and
“going dark” with encryption, it refers to mainly two people/groups: Blacks and
Latinos and activists and/or Muslims, respectively.
So, in one story that intersects hacking and politics, we also find racism,
anti-Muslim bias, and mass state surveillance of our private devices.
I Need You to Wake Up!
At the end of the day, we must realize we are not living in bubbles where
everything has a clean separation. Intersectionality is a method that explains
and illustrates to our community that hacking is politics and that the
“political” topics we try to shun often come back to our community in many
ways. So now that we see that our hacking is not and cannot be separated from
politics (or the work of denouncing and bringing down systemic racism, sexism,
patriarchy, etc.), what do we do? It’s actually simple: Wake up! Stay Woke! Get
informed! Get moving!
References
Crenshaw, K. (1989). “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black
Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and
Antiracist Politics”, University of Chicago Legal Forum, 139-167., from
https://philpapers.org/archive/CREDTI.pdf
Kharpal, A. (2016, March 29). “Apple vs FBI: All you need to know”,
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/29/apple-vs-fbi-all-you-need-to-know.html
Rubin, J., Queally, J., & Dave, P. (2016, March 28). “FBI unlocks San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone and ends legal battle with Apple, for now”,
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-fbi-drops-fight-to-force-apple-to-unlock-san-bernardino-terrorist-iphone-20160328-story.html
--
void
