Re: Exactly 500 word essay on "Why hacking is cool, so that Marcus changes his web site"

[Jonathan Karon <jkaron () animusrex com>]

Marcus et al,

With all due respect, and I really do mean that, and at the risk of
getting too political (though politics and hacking seem to be
indivisible), I'd like to hack some of your assumptions.  Mind you, I'm
not prepared to defend any of this as my position, I just think
political and cultural theory is good for computer security.

It seems when you say tyranny, you're really saying "physically coercive
governmental entity".  What about societal / economic systems that are
implicitly tyrannic, and engineered to both support a governmental
status quo and be self sustaining?  To refer back to a previous thread,
if you don't have the language or genetics for dissent, are you not
living under a tyranny by default?

In terms specific to this discussion, what if your struggle is not
against a government, but rather against the "free market" corporations
that hold sway over that government?  In that context, where consumer
credit is the gold standard of business, personal information is
currency, and crucial systems are only crucial for ongoing profit, any
compromise that disrupts the norms of business is a strike for freedom. 
Any compromise that shows an individual how vulnerable they are to the
whims of business is a strike for freedom.


And a reminder - political history is written by the victors, and only
sums up the obvious.  That failed, fallen, and disfavored dictatorships
always went down in history as physically coercive merely means that is
what they were remembered for.  And yes, violence is a very effective
means of coercion.  But so is societal suppression, newspeak and, my
favorite, the American Dream.

~jk