An objective and academic view on hackers and hacking. TLDR: we are all Hackers.

This series talks to computer hackers about their drive to hack. The result is a series of subjective, personal views on what makes a computer hacker. Now we seek an objective view, through the eyes of an academic. 

The academic is Mckenzie Wark, a professor of Media and Cultural Studies at The New School in New York City. She uses a blend of cultural and philosophical insights to explore change in social issues, and is possibly best known for her seminal book, A Hacker Manifesto.

We always start these conversations with a single question: are you a hacker? “In the widely understood sense of the word, ‘No’,” she says. “But in my own, different sense of the word, ‘Yes’.”

This is what we’ll explore: the objective academic view of a non-computer hacker on what makes a hacker and what is hacking. We’ll be dipping into three important works: Wark’s A Hacker Manifesto; Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens; and Bernard Suits’ The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia.

The need for an objective view comes from our failure to adequately answer important questions from subjective conversations. Take the basic question: what motivates a computer hacker? We hear, ‘curiosity’, but we don’t understand its causal link with computer hacking. We also find a statistically high proportion of neurodivergents (specifically ADHD and Asperger’s); but divergence is clearly not a pre-requisite. We find a strong ‘moral compass’ in ‘good’ hackers, but this exists side by side with amorality and a disinclination to criticize ‘malicious’ hackers.

So, with the help of McKenzie Wark, we are looking for a more comprehensive and objective view of the mind and motivations of the hacker that can rationalize the inconsistencies we find within computer hackers.

Wark’s view of hacking

Wark believes the current view of a hacker as a person who wishes to break computer systems (“the sort of mythical figure whose intentions are entirely criminal”) is a very narrow, media driven view of a much wider societal phenomenon. She believes the wider class of hackers are the creators of information in constant battle with the usurpers of their creativity. Hackers first create information and then seek to liberate their creativity from the organizations who seek to own it for their personal gain rather than the general good.

This wider view of hacking goes beyond our current tendency to limit hacking to the liberation of data from computers. It has existed throughout history and transcends geography and subject. It applies as much to philosophy, to economics, to warfare, to politics and… well, anything that is built on data. The liberation of formulative data is a creative rather than destructive force.

“What if we thought of all creative work, including but not limited to information and information systems [computer hacking], as an engine of creativity, and discovery, and possibility, both for agency over one’s own labor and agency over creation, possibly also for the public good?”, asks Wark “There’s almost a utopian sense of what hacking could be, which includes but is not limited to the modern technology-constrained media-based view of computer hacking.”

The implication is that hackers and hacking have existed in all walks of life throughout history. Hacking is almost part of being human, and that if we wish to understand the computer phenomenon, we need to look beyond computer hacking. But we still need to understand what drives the creative process.

The Playing Man

McKenzie suggests that part of the answer may be found in the work of Dutch cultural historian Johan Huizinga’s study, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. “Huizinga argues that Play is the foundation of every civilization, and that every form of organization and culture we now have originally came out of Play,” she explains. “I find it persuasive, that the core of being human is not homo faber (man with a tool), nor homo sapiens (the thinking monkey), but homo ludens (the playing man).” 

Play seems to be a fundamental and existential aspect of being human; and hacking may be an interpretation of Play focused on specific objects. There is even a semantic link between Huizinga’s playing man and Wark’s hacking man through her use of games to explain different hacker motivations.

The implication is that hacking, as part of Play, is part of being human. Certainly, McKenzie sees it in herself. She is not a computer code hacker. “I really don’t have that level of skill; but in the wider sense, the thing I play with is written language.”

On reflection, most people will recognize this element of creative play in what they do in life. The process of writing this article is an example that combines Huizinga’s Play with Wark’s wider sense of hacking – it is an attempt to liberate new and more useful insights by deconstructing common views and recreating something more instructive or useful. That process correlates with a primary purpose recognized by many computer hackers: deconstruct the code and recreate if better.

Curiosity

Curiosity – the most common motivation cited by computer hackers in this series – is not directly discussed by Huizinga. Nevertheless, it is implied as a factor of Play throughout. Curiosity drives the desire to explore, while Play provides a safe place to experiment with new ideas – it drives the desire to learn so that new ideas can be played with. 

Consider the original computer hackers. They rarely, if ever, had any malicious intent. Curiosity over this new technology fed the desire to learn about it. But it was too expensive to use – so an early play was discovering ways to get access to the technology for free. 

Consider next one of the earliest hacks (sub-categorized as phone hacking, or phreaking, but still basically within the realms of computer hacking): the Cap’n Crunch hack. John Draper discovered that a free plastic whistle found in Cap’n Crunch cereal boxes could provide the precise 2600 Hz tone used in AT&T’s network control signaling. It gave Draper (aka Crunchman) the ability to gain free access to expensive long-distance telephony. Draper (and others) went on to develop more sophisticated electronic devices known as ‘blue boxes’. The two Steves (Wozniak and Jobs) were both involved in building blue boxes before building Apple – and both subsequently confirmed that blue boxes enhanced their early understanding of technology.

The Cap’n Crunch hack (or phreak) was not born out of malicious intent. It was effectively Play born of curiosity to improve understanding, but it was also computer hacking. McKenzie expands on this idea. “Buried in the history of computer hacking are people who were playing at places like MIT and Stanford. They had access to labs and computational tools, phenomenally expensive at the time, that they could treat like toys,” she says. 

“But it was a special time when nobody really knew what these things could do, so some very curious and playful people got to play, and invented substantial bits of what has become contemporary computing. So, you can view the computer hacker as an extension of a social type with a tendency to play in a particular domain that got extended and is occasionally recognized and valued, but occasionally veers off in a different rule-breaking (criminal) direction – as happens with any tendency to play.”

In this extended view of hacking, both the making of computer technology and the breaking of computer technology are the result of hackers and hacking spurred by curiosity; but Huizinga and McKenzie show that the same basic principle goes way beyond computing. They effectively suggest that to be human is to be hacker.

Morality

While this Hacker Conversations series tries to understand why a particular hacker is moral, immoral, or amoral, based on the personal sense of a moral compass, McKenzie dismisses the role of morality in computer hacking. She prefers to relate hacker direction to game playing.

“I don’t think it’s morality. It’s law, or in the case of games, rules. If you think about games, most people are motivated to win the game while observing the rules – we don’t think a victory is legitimate unless we follow the rules. But we also have the cheats who are motivated only by winning, and don’t care if they break the rules. It’s a different kind of relationship with Play. A third kind is the spoilsport, who doesn’t care about either winning or the rules, but just wants to upend the whole thing.” 

For the computer hacker, what we try to explain as a moral compass is really an attitude toward the rules of the game that is currently being played. There is a fourth type of player – the one that McKenzie more closely associates with herself. This is the Trifler, separately described by Bernard Suits in The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia.

In Suit’s work, the Grasshopper is the Trifler who engages in activities that have no goal-oriented purpose. It’s not a game because there are no structural rules – it simply appears to be activity with no purpose beyond immediate gratification. The Ant objects to this, considering it to be idleness with no benefit to society, The Grasshopper argues that trifling is the highest example of human activity, undertaken with no preconceived rules, rewards, or directives.

In both Huizinga’s view of Play, and Suit’s view of trifling, the practice is ideally autotelic; that is, it is an activity undertaken purely for its own sake. In Wark’s game playing analogy, autotelic can still exist within the framework of the game’s rules.

“We don’t spend enough time considering this fourth kind of player, which Bernard Suits called the Trifler. Triflers may be interested in the rules, but they don’t care whether they win or not,” adds McKenzie. “The Trifler simply wants to play around inside the game idea. So, there are four different relations you can have to something that’s game-like. The game basically has two qualities: a win condition, and the rules. Games are a little more complicated than that, but if we boil it down, there’s four kinds of subjectivity in relation to the game – and we’ve probably all been all four at one point or another. But maybe some of us are more drawn to one subjectivity than the others. I personally don’t care if I win games – I’m just not very motivated by that, but I love rule sets, and so I’m more the Trifler type.”

Computer hacking simultaneously belongs to Huizinga’s genus Play, and McKenzie’s genus Hacking – which in many ways are the same thing. Both may be constrained by a morality that can be explained by the rules of game playing. 

Neurodiversity

So far, looking at computer hacking through the lens of Huizinga’s fundamental human tendency toward Play and McKenzie’s wider view of Hacking and game playing provides a more consistent understanding of the computer hackers’ concepts of ‘curiosity as motivator’ and ‘morality as director’; but it doesn’t help us understand the role of neurodiversity in computer hacking. This is not surprising since playing, and curiosity, and morality are human behavioral traits while divergence is a neurological, physical condition.

Nevertheless, the potential for technology to offer a safe haven to people on the autism spectrum is well recognized. Common factors in both ADHD and Asperger’s (in different degrees) are social and verbal communications difficulties, a dislike of ambiguities, and an ability to hyperfocus. The first two are mediated by working one-on-one with computers that have no ambiguities (or at least a very strict and knowable set of rules) and limited live interaction with other people; while the third, hyperfocus, turns what could otherwise be problematic into something computer hackers describe as their ‘superpower’. 

“Working with computers can be an affirming experience for neurodivergents,” suggests McKenzie. “Systems can be incredibly complex, but there’s no ambiguity in the rules. Solutions are demonstrably right or wrong, and there’s no requirement to parse out an emotion that someone is trying to express, when that emotion is beyond your comprehension.”

For neurodivergents, computing is a safe place to play. If we accept Huizinga’s view that Play is the cornerstone of all human activity, and that Play is almost synonymous with McKenzie’s wider view of Hacking, computer hacking is something that neurodivergents can safely do within the constraints of their neurological condition. The lesser behavioral traits of curiosity and the type of game-player each hacker embodies then directs the person toward beneficial or malicious hacking.

In short, Huizinga’s concept of Play demonstrates that there is no causal link, in either direction, between neurology and hacking. Not all first class hackers are neurodivergent, and not all neurodivergents are first class hackers.

PostScript

There is one further aspect to consider. Huizinga implies that the concept of Play is inherent in all humans – but the process of Play is not always empirically visible or apparent. Should this observation be applied to all human characteristics, both behavioral and neurological, including behaviors like curiosity and creativity, and conditions like ASD and the inferiority complex? (Certainly, the early psychologist Alfred Adler who coined the term ‘inferiority complex’ believed that it exists in every child.)

So, let’s run with the hypothesis that all human conditions occur in all humans, but the condition is not always discernible. This observation could be explained by the severity of the condition (as it gets modified by the experiences of life, just as curiosity is mollified by parental warnings that ‘curiosity killed the cat’) on a scale of, let’s say, 1 to 100. At some point on this scale there is a perceptual tipping point, below which the condition is indiscernible, and above which it suddenly becomes apparent (or diagnosable), increasing in severity further up the scale. So, purely for illustrative purposes, somebody with an ASD score of 49 or less is not perceived as ASD, but any score in the 50s indicates mild ASD while a score in the 90s indicates severe ASD.

This article has plotted a path from Huizinga’s Play theories through its modification by McKenzie to explain universal creativity based on the concept we currently call hacking and explained through game playing. This has huge implications. For example, we are all neurodiverse to some degree, but most of us will never experience any of its effects. More to the point of this series, we are all Hackers – we just don’t know it.

Related: Hacker Conversations: Frank Trezza – From Phreaker to Pentester

Related: Hacker Conversations: David Kennedy – an Atypical Typical Hacker

Related: Hacker Conversations: HD Moore and the Line Between Black and White

Related: Hacker Conversations: Joe Grand – Mischiefmaker, Troublemaker, Teacher