Hacker Ethics: What do they mean for Hacksmiths and what I found at Hackcon EU
At this point, I’ve probably been involved in Hacksmiths (This is Goldsmiths Universities Technology/Hackers Society) the longest. In my first year, I supported Hugh, Nevo and Jakub in running events. In my second and third year, I was President, and now I am part of a whopping 18 person team delivering dozens of events every year.
Ever since the beginning, there has been a common set of values that the group has adopted, values that originally brought me to Hackathons and the Hacker community, and I’m really proud to see them still holding strong. They are, of course, the Hacker Ethics.
An ethic, a creed, a code, a set of values or moral principles. These are all phrases that describe a value-system that we can choose to follow and attempt to abide by, that helps guide our lives and influence our decisions. These are usually values that resonate with our core-beliefs, values we can live by, that form our identity. Whenever we choose to label ourselves; ‘Left-wing’, ‘Right-wing’, ‘Muslim’, ‘Atheist’, ‘Geek’, ‘Nerd’, ‘Vegan’, ‘Trekkie’ from the serious to the inane, we are self-prescribing to the values those labels in still, if we live by the ones we choose we are ‘genuine’ if you don’t we are ‘frauds’. With all that considered…
“We are Hackers”
“Hackers”, I hear you say! “You mean you break into servers and steal stuff!?”. No, No we don’t. But can I blame you for thinking so, not really, the media has taken that term, that label, that word and has ingrained into the public consciousness that it only has ONE malign morally corrupt meaning — To break into, to steal, to disrupt a digital medium.
This is NOT the true meaning of Hacker in a technical context.
Hacker ethics originated at the Tech Model railroad Club at MIT in 1959, by a bunch of students fascinated by the Unis new TX-01 computer, a room sized beast with the power of a modern desk calculator. These students, booked the TX-01 when it was free, not for formal academic research but for informal exploration, pushing the boundaries of what it could do in creative ways and sharing that knowledge among their peers. Hence started a computer revolution.
What came out of that community were some strong ideas, that today are the fundamental principles underpinning Hacksmiths. Principles we look towards when we organise events.
- ‘All information should be free’ An idea that ironically contradicts with the idea of a University, a place which is founded on gate-keeping knowledge, is one that we hold the most dear. Its why this year we are running ‘Code&Craft’ an event open to students and the local community at large, attempting to give everyone access to education about technology by means of guided peer-peer learning and well sourced resources.
- ‘Always yield to the Hands-On Imperative!’ Something that is the core of a Workshop or Hackathon. We endeavour to teach by DOING at all our events and believe it is the best way to learn anything technical. You can see this in practice at any Monthly Workshop, Code&Craft and Hackathon (An invention marathon).
- ‘Mistrust authority — promote decentralization’ Is embodied in our mistrust of organisations that try and withhold technology from people and influences our moral choice of not approaching financial institutions for sponsorship while championing organisations that disrupt bureaucratic systems.
- ‘Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not criteria such as degrees, age, race, sex, or position’ We have zero entry requirements to join Hacksmiths, all we ask is an interest in technology. We recognize the struggle of unrepresented groups in tech and that we must fight for the above to be true in the wider world. This is why we ran ‘NBiT’ this year, a conference for non-binary people in tech and are running a social for women and non-binary ‘Lovelace’ in the coming months.
- You can create art and beauty with Technology You can see no shortage of the idea in practice at Goldsmiths and is why our pinnacle event every year is ‘Anvil Hack’. A hackathon focused on creative practises!
- Technology can change your life for the better This is why we ran Hackcess, a hackathon focused on hardware for people with disabilities and why for the second year running we will be running ‘Sex-Tech Hack’ a hackathon promoting sex-positive attitudes.
At Hackcon EU III, a conference for hackathon and tech-soc organisers, I ran a discussion which aimed to be an actionable review of both the ‘anarchist’ 1950–60s Hacker Ethics that Hacksmiths follows (see above) and the ‘infosec’ 1990/2000s Hacker Ethics that influenced the changing of the hacker meaning. The 90’s Hacker ethics were primarily — Protect data, Protect and Honour privacy, Leave no traces and Test security , these are very important points but more fit what would be considered a “Cracker” Ethic or an Infosec hacker (Information security). What was clear at Hackcon was that in the tech-event community, the original ethics felt more relevant to them and resonated more.
I spent the session asking the participants what “hacking” meant to them with both the hacker ethics as context and a few themes emerged.
- Spaces Having spaces both virtual and real that are safe places anyone can go without judgment to “Hack” collaboratively or individually.
- Time to explore Many of the participants treasured the fact that Hackathons, primarily, gave them time to explore concepts and ideas they would not have time to explore at work or school.
- No Judgement This came up a lot, in a time of heavy identity politics, it seems hackers want to try and transcend our differences and become inclusive by default by championing those who are under represented or repressed.
These insights were interesting because many of them include within them a lot of the original hacker ethics but evolved to reflect what meant the most to them now. Which gave me an idea. Can we create a new hacker ethic. We took the themes and I put it to the floor. What we came up with was this:
“Maintain the virtual and real safe spaces we have access to but let them die when they become toxic”
This is something that I personally think needs refining buts its sentiment is real and it reflects the modern hacker enough that it could become another ethic. We, especially at Hacksmiths, will be considering it a lot as we go into a new year.
“We are Hacksmiths, We are Hackers”
It was fantastic to see both new and old hackathon organisers looking at the Hacker Ethics and relating it to the values which they hold as community leaders. Hacksmiths was built on these ideals and they mean a lot to me personally, they define who I am. I was very happy to be able to share that passion with the community and hope to continue to explore it further both within and outside Hacksmiths.
Bevis Halsey-Perry
@bevishalperry
Further Reading:
Steven Levys — Hackers: Heros of the Computer Revolution. << The definitive insight into the origin of hacker subculture and how it drastically influenced our modern technical world.
