Humour

No more black hats

T A Balasubramanian on getting back to the clean tradition of hacking.

The Hacker’s Gold Mine Meet, or HGMM, so called because it is expected to draw the best talent in the hacker community like a honeypot, is located at one corner of the Techno Over-exposition of Geeks and Gizmos for Lazy Enterprises (TOGGLE), with plenty of coffee vending machines, tables and benches strewn around.

You, Papyrus Bytewala, CIO of Baffle Corporation, accompanied by Danny DeVito, your CTO and associate, and now additionally followed by Gene Hackman, CEO of Virus Busters, are involved in a new mission to find the diabolic hacker who goes by the name Robin Hood. This elusive hacker, with some deft underhand strategy, appears to have stolen Hackman’s notebook computers, much to the latter’s understandable distress.

The present move to the area where the world’s most accomplished hacking veterans are expected to assemble is DeVito’s bright idea. According to a large poster in the vicinity, ‘strange, self-conscious or just plain annoying’ people of all ages are welcome at HGMM. “You don’t have to be a hacker to attend the event. But the conference, sponsored by the famous programming guru, Chubby Goldfinger, is obviously intended for those who have more than a passing interest in technology,” explains Hackman.

“How do these hacker gatherings help ordinary people?” you ask.

“This meet used to bill itself as the ‘largest underground security gathering on the planet’, but now its underground status is in question as it seems to be very much on the ground. But of course, these days, anyone with half a brain who carries a notebook or even a handheld device should care about technology and the antics of hackers,” says Hackman, imperiously. “The way I see it, you’re either a victim, or a techie. Even being a techie does not help sometimes, as you can see with me. Here is the bottom line: you can learn to get behind the hacker mystique or you’ll be at the receiving end of Robin Hood’s generosity. And you will be missing a few gadgets and vital data if you’re really unlucky.”

The people who are gathered at the meet do not seem to be particularly odd. Perhaps this is more symptomatic of the general shift within the global computer scene: as it becomes more open, it gets more diluted.

The feel of the event is more like a political fund-raising party with a carnival attitude. “I am sure most of the real action is happening in private rooms, where you could find solitary hackers armed with laptops, away from the crowds,” says Hackman, whispering.

“Gene, why are you whispering?” says DeVito, also whispering in the same tone.

“It’s a precaution we should take. Any one of these ordinary fellows sauntering around may be the guy we are looking for,” Hackman says.

“This is a place where a thousand systems-obsessed individuals will be listening.”

“What will they be listening to?”

“They will be listening for any little scraps of vital information floating around. They will fuel their paranoia in sessions that promise to reveal in hellish detail the wicked machinations of governments and big corporations. They will also scoff at the misguided attempts of the ‘amateur’ security officers—maybe CIOs and CTOs such as you two—who are seriously challenged while trying to keep them out of your systems. They will openly share information on how to subvert your computer networks. They will privately worry whether their obsessive need to dissect data could lead to jail time.”

“You mean they are all nasty black hats here? No shades of grey? No white hats at all?” says DeVito.

“I have no trust in these guys at all—not after being swindled by Robin Hood,” says Hackman, grimly. “After the demise of the old school ‘hacker ethic’ and with the current rash of easy-to-use hacking tools, who can say what hacking is these days? Since it is possible to find some high profile hackers with seemingly noble intentions lobbying grandly to grab the attention of governments and courting big business, while others with the best of intentions—maybe just curiosity—get caught in the global crackdown on ‘cybercrime’, it is also unclear who the good, the bad, or the ugly hackers are.”

“Ooh, that’s morbid, Gene. So what does it take to become a hacker?”

You begin to wonder where DeVito is going with all this information-gathering. Hackman does not seem to be concerned at all, as he rambles on.

“Well, Danny, the most obvious common personality traits of hackers are high smarts, consuming curiosity, and a mad fondness for intellectual abstractions. Another is the sponge-like ability to mentally absorb, retain, and recall vast amounts of meaningless detail, leaving it to later accidental experiences to give it context and meaning. A person of merely average analytical intelligence who has this trait can become an effective hacker, but a creative genius who lacks it will soon be outpaced by fiends who routinely upload the contents of thick reference manuals into their brains.”

“That’s a nice bunch of traits,” says DeVito. “Do you know that I have just such…”

“I think we should shut up and listen to the keynote speaker,” you say quickly, before your CTO can proceed further. “It is Chubby Goldfinger himself at the podium.”

On the stage, a short, portly man stands in a halo of yellow light, his eyes hidden behind huge dark goggles. He lifts both arms and waves slowly to the cheering crowd. “Welcome to the Hacker’s Gold Mine,” he declares.

“The joy of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations, as one common definition for hacking has it, is not dependent on the character of those limitations, but rather on the challenge of overcoming them,” he booms in a voice that sounds like Brando’s rendition of Don Corleone in The Godfather.

“However, hacking does not exist as a pure definition, it exists in real life. The limitations we hackers face are not only technological, but also legal, economic, social, and political. At some point all hackers realise that their joy clashes with ‘the command and control structures of the global economy’—in the form of parents, system administrators, corporate hierarchies, organised crime, courts and police. This confrontation is inevitable, although to many hackers it comes as a shock. This shock determines to an extent the cornered mindset of hackers and fosters their proverbial rebellion against rules, structures and authorities—the jittery anarchism of the lone nerd.”

The crowd erupts with thunderous applause, in which you meekly join. DeVito and Hackman clap with great enthusiasm.

“But as we know, all hackers are not anti-social animals. Contrary to stereotype, hackers are not usually intellectually myopic—they tend to get wrapped up in any subject that can give them mental stimulation. They can often discourse knowledgeably and even engagingly on any number of obscure topics—if you can get them to talk at all, as opposed to, say, going back to their hacking,” says Goldfinger, with a chuckle.

The crowd laughs in response. “It is time for us to get back to the clean tradition of hacking, based on cooperative coding, free exchange of ideas, and the rejection of the notion of turning software into a scarce resource. No more black hats. That’s what we want to start doing here.”