Re: [Hackmeeting] Inseparable: The Intersectionality of Hack…

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Oggetto: Re: [Hackmeeting] Inseparable: The Intersectionality of Hacking and Politics
https://twitter.com/yesthattom/status/920455690161938432


On 10/18/2017 06:02 PM, void wrote:
> 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
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