Here's the finished report. It got an A. Written at the end it says, "This is a wonderful essay that demonstrates depth, focus, and originality. A fine job!" And she even commented on Frog's point, which you'll see below.
The whole point of the paper is supposed to compare virtual communities with real communities. If you read it, keep in mind that I tried to modify a few things to suit the general public. And I exaggerated a few things just to make them sound better. I mixed in things from the hacker community with things from "the internet" to support my points. And I hinted that HOPE is a smaller con than Defcon, even though I don't know that. Oh, and I wrote about Rubicon as if it still exists. Enjoy!
Oh, and if anyone ever wants to steal this paper and use it in a class, go ahead.
Investigating Culture – The Hacker Community
A community is defined as a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests. But is a virtual community on the internet the same as a community in real life? From my personal experiences inside the computer hacker’s virtual community, I can say that virtual communities can be just as important and fulfilling to an individual as a real life community.
In the computer hacking community I’ve made countless friends, as well as a few enemies. I’ve spent the past 15 years growing up with these virtual friends, watching them come and go, seeing them married and divorced, and I’ve even lost one of them to a suicide and others to accidental deaths. I’ve been there for some who’ve been arrested or investigated for computer crimes and I’ve helped the authorities deal with others.
As in most online communities, new members are accepted for what they know and what they can contribute. People in this community judge you by your talents and what you can bring to the scene, not by your age, race, religion or social status. In this regard, being accepted simply for your knowledge rather than what you look like or how you dress, I think virtual communities are better than real world communities.
Noticing the benefits of interacting anonymously in the hacker community is far from being a new observation. In 1986, a hacker known as The Mentor wrote in Phrack Magazine, “We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias… and you call us criminals.†(The Mentor)
Just like a real community, the hacking community has its own cliques, specialized groups and exclusive circles of friends. There are always the groups of newcomers, referred to as newbs
(The teacher corrected me here, saying I should have written newbies. The teacher is a newb.) by the people who’ve been around for awhile, who tend to stick together until they’re able to prove themselves and move on to other social groups within the hacker community. There are the elitists, who think they’re too cool to talk to anyone outside of their group of friends. There are some members who are considered legendary, because their exploits have been extensively documented in books, newspapers, television or movies. And then there are plenty of people in the middle, not really caring too much which group or side of the hacker community they belong to, as long as they’re in there someplace.
While many hackers social status are determined by the length of time they’ve been in the community, there are also groups based on what area of expertise a hacker specializes in. Some hackers are into classic hacking techniques, such as finding unknown open doors in computer systems and exploiting them. Other hackers are into more destructive forms of hacking, such as defacing web sites, or stealing proprietary information and services from companies.
Some stick to social engineering, which is the art of conning your way past computer security measures using real people. Then there are the hackers who stick to learning the ins and outs of various telephone systems. All of these different hacking areas and techniques eventually overlap each other, but members of the community usually like to linger and help out in the areas they’re best at.
The hacker community has its share of outsiders too. “Destructive hacking†is always unacceptable in the hacking community. Hacking for monetary gain is also something that most respected hackers never encourage or participate in. Most hackers feel that hacking should only be used to further your own knowledge, teach other people what they’ve learned, and to help system administrators better secure their systems. They feel that hackers who cause damage and steal money only make the hacking community look bad in the eyes of the general public. Hackers who violate these rules of common sense are rarely respected by anyone in the hacking community.
Probably the most prominent type of outsider who attempts to join the hacker community is the guy who wants to learn how to hack immediately, without actually learning anything. It’s usually for some nefarious purpose, such as spying on his girlfriend’s email account or wanting to change his grade in the school computer. People like this are lectured at length, by the regular members of the community, about what hacking really is. This kind of newcomer rarely gets the point and eventually leaves on their own, never to be seen again.
The virtual hacker community today exists on numerous internet discussion forums, in chat rooms, on Usenet and on various web sites. Discussion forums range from the wildly popular and well-known with thousands of active users, to the smaller and more private systems, which allow only trusted hackers inside. Some of the community’s chat rooms on IRC have been around for more than a decade and operate similarly, sometimes letting anyone inside and sometimes only allowing the hackers that they know and trust inside. There are also hundreds of hacking web sites and many Usenet discussion groups.
All of these mediums in the hacker community are designed to teach, as well as to entertain and help each other socialize. For example, a hacker can sit in a chat room and watch his colleagues brag about their latest exploits while he reads discussion forums that discuss every form of cellular phone hacking known to man. Websites are full of enough hacking content to form a complete set of hacking encyclopedias. From historical texts on the origins of hacking to the latest information on breaking into the public terminals in a library, a hacker can find any kind of information he desires within the hacking community. And if he can’t, a fellow hacker is always willing to answer his questions on the forums or in the chat rooms.
According to a user named Frog from the Phone Losers of America hacker forums, virtual communities will ultimately be able to stay alive even longer than communities in real life because records of virtual communities are preserved by many people within the community. While real life communities can conveniently forget certain happenings, this doesn’t easily occur in the virtual world since essentially everything is recorded. Frog explains, “Because records are readily available, people can keep them alive easily. Forums are filled with quotes from past members and running gags.†(Frog)
On the Frog paragraph, the teacher wrote "great point" Though the hacking community has always primarily been a virtual community and probably always will be, there are plenty of opportunities for hackers to meet each other in real life. Every year in Las Vegas, hackers get together for the annual Defcon hacker’s convention, which is now in its 14th year. Defcon usually has anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 attendees, all there to learn from the dozens of presentations, participate in hacker games, buy hacker gear and t-shirts, and consume lots of alcohol as they meet with people they’ve known in the virtual community for years. (Defcon)
Then there are plenty of other, smaller hacker conventions happening all over the country, such as Hackers on Planet Earth in New York City, PhreakNic in Tennesse and Rubicon in Detroit. Besides these conventions, on the first Friday of each month in cities all over the world, there are free hacker meetings in malls, coffee shops and internet cafes. All of these conventions have been formed by the virtual hacking community in order to bring hackers together in real life so that they can further discuss, and even demonstrate, hacking techniques.
So is the computer hacking virtual community a real community? I’ve personally seen friends grow up in this community, some from extremely young ages and other’s who’ve been around longer than I have. We’ve all supported each other in our various endeavors, helping each other along with encouragement and ideas. Some members disappear for years but they almost always check back in with us from time to time. Many of my long-term real life friends are a direct result of participating in this virtual community. Even without the real-life aspect of hacker conventions and meetings, the answer is an obvious yes. Virtual communities are real communities.
Works Cited
The Mentor. “The Conscience of a Hacker.â€ÂÂ
8 Jan. 1986. Phrack Magazine
http://www.phrack.org/archives/7/P07-03Frog. Online Posting.
12 Oct 2006. Phone Losers of America Forums
http://www.phonelosers.org/forums/index.php?topic=658Defcon FAQ
12 Oct 2006. Defcon web site
http://www.defcon.org/html/links/dc-faq/dc-faq.html
