Read_Me. . Conference - Grapevine - H2K2-HOPE Hackers on Planet Earth

Afterimage, Sept-Oct, 2002 by Are Flagan

* H2K2 - HOPE (Hackers on Planet Earth) Conference

* Hotel Pennsylvania

* New York City, New York

* July 12 - 14

H2K2 is only the fourth conference of HOPE (Hackers On Planet Earth) and the third at Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City. From a relatively modest start in 1994, the conference has gradually and quite impressively grown in size from occupying only a small amount of hotel real estate to breach the capacity of an entire floor during the most popular events. While the earliest hacker "conferences" (usually abbreviated Con, as in SummerCon 1987) were very informal and, sadly, often marred by arrests, the gradual recognition of the hacker enterprise and ethic has led to large public events like HOPE that are comprised of 12 quite exhausting but equally invigorating hours of programming per day. Unlike other hacker gatherings that have taken a very commercial turn, such as the DefCon extravaganza in Las Vegas (which sidelines as the security industry's peek-at-the-underground showcase). HOPE is heavily invested in the social and political agendas that motivate and support hacker activity. The list of speakers and topics is consequently not only cloaked in handles and obscure network acronyms. It also includes authors and industry experts that, respectively, have sales ranks on amazon.com and command-six-figure salaries. Their common thread is the belief in a free and open society that readily shares information and knowledge to collectively improve on the world we live in. Faced with the oppressive culture of security and secrecy that currently sweeps this nation, the concerns raised, the information shared and the stories told at HOPE resonate with an unprecedented urgency when one considers the increasingly analogous relations between computer networks and society at large. Each fundamentally operates according to constantly developing and intermittently agreed upon protocols that can be equated with democratic principles, but each is also increasingly controlled by corporate and legislative interventions. When a bona fide, public forum like HOPE compels some audience members to cover their faces with bandanas (othe rs, presumably jokingly if black humor counts, sported silly false noses and moustaches) to hide from the Feds seated watchfully in the back, the debated lines of contention drawn in session after session found its mirror image in the assembled crowd.

Computer hacking is by all accounts driven by compulsive and obsessive behavior that does not rest until a problem is solved or curiosity is satisfied. It was perhaps fitting then that sessions ran back to back on two overlapping tracks with a third track offering an open forum for anyone to speak their mind or report on the latest exploits. Those whose ability to absorb knowledge was not already besieged by this bit-rate could linger in the network, workshop and merchandise area, which also featured what amounted to an archeology of hardware available for nostalgic experimentation. Most, however, came equipped with their own top-of-the-line laptops and the organizers had kindly installed a wireless network to support the impromptu groups that formed to share their experiences at the command line. Consequently, any gaps in the already overwhelming flow of input were incredulously filled with computation and programming at an advanced level, and considering that many participants seemed to have taken part of t heir school vacation in New York City, the endurance of these attendees should bluntly have silenced any academic, or parental for that matter, concerns about falling standards and endemic ADD. There were even family values on display by hacker mums and dads who splurged on 2600 (the sponsoring magazine www.2600.com) caps for their offspring and sat through complex talks on ICANN's increasingly dubious future with them.

This is not to suggest that HOPE was a tech-savvy version of Bible camp. But considering the avatar nature and negative representation of "hackers," the uninitiated (counting yours truly) may be excused for initially commenting on the normality and--gender excluded--diversity of the scene behind the screen. And the educational aspects indicated above are not really an attempt to repackage hacker activity in a wholesome glow suitable for wholesale consumption: education, as the sharing of knowledge, actually sketches the very foundation of hacker activity. The central document that supports this interpretation, commonly known as "The Hacker Manifesto" (search Google and you will find it by the thousands), was read aloud and commented on by its author in a session entitled "The Conscience of a Hacker," which is the original title given the text when it first appeared in Phrack magazine. Written when The Mentor was not much more than a child himself, it bemoans the educational system and its stifling standards, which are overcome by independent experimentation with computers (a short quote from the text, which was written on January 8, 1986, shortly after The Mentor was arrested): "I've listened to teachers explain for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I understand it. "No Ms. Smith, I didn't show my work. I did it in my head." Damn kid. Probably copied it. They're all alike. I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is cool. It does what I want it to do. If it makes a mistake, it's because I screwed it up. Not because it doesn't like me. Or feels threatened by me. Or thinks I'm a smart ass. Or doesn't like teaching and shouldn't be there. Damn kid." The Mentor added his own statistics to the latter Manifesto point by estimating that of the roughly 150 teachers he had been in contact with during his career as a student, only two had left an inspirational and inquisitive mark on him through their teaching. Despite its staccato flow and basic language, the relative simplicity of the text reveals complex relationships between institutions and individuals, as well as technology and society. It is fundamentally the failure of living up to the responsibilities of these relations that is being criticized in "The Hacker Manifesto," and technology takes on the role of realizing a new set of human relations, born from individual responsibility, that truly value freedom and education. Perhaps easily dismissed, 17 years after it was written, as a conventional litany against authority, the Manifesto nevertheless had a young HOPE audience repeatedly nodding to its message. One may suspect that the approval partly stems from the politicians' feebleminded attempts to "improve" the public school system through endless testing. Meanwhile The Mentor has come of age to comply with some institutional dictums, notably those of Sigmund Freud, by marrying a public school teacher, but he is putting all negative suspicions about his early text to shame by scavenging for computer parts in his spare time to build , in collaboration with his wife, computer labs for the kids. It appears that "The Conscience of a Hacker" has always been a solid work in progress.